Tega Cay tackles coyote issue with tracking, management; trapping discouraged

City Council voted unanimously Monday night to approve a coyote management plan created by City Manager Charlie Funderburk, Assistant City Manager Katie Poulsen and Chief of Police Steve Parker.

The plan is modeled after strategies implemented over more than 15 years in Mount Pleasant, Funderburk said, including ongoing public education focused on actively coexisting with wildlife and understanding the rights and responsibilities of property owners.

Other measures in the plan call for tracking and monitoring coyotes and their interactions with humans and provisions for lethal control measures if and when necessary to ensure public safety.

“We based it off of Mount Pleasant’s plan because they had been so successful with it,” Funderburk said.

“The biggest thing I got from them is stressing public education more than anything. There are a ton of rumors and myths that we have found out about coyotes that aren’t necessarily true. Getting those facts, making sure that they’re readily accessible…the biggest thing is not feeding them. Don’t make the food sources easy.”

Residents have complained officially and on social media with increasing frequency about the presence of coyotes and reporting attacks on pets. Some residents believe coyotes are responsible for cats that have gone missing.

The city documented 51 coyote-related calls to 911 from Jan. 20 to Nov. 7 and used the data to map coyote activity.

“It tapered off a lot as we moved into the summer months,” Funderburk said.

“The vast majority of those calls were they either heard one or they think they saw one. We did have two that said there were encounters or attacks on their pets. Most of them either heard one or saw one on the golf course or near their back yard, that kind of thing. The majority of the calls came from residents living from holes five to eight on The Pines and holes fifteen to sixteen of The Grandview.”

Funderburk approached trappers from Fort Mill and Chester who could legally trap and relocate the coyotes during a window from Dec. 1-March 1. Costs ranged from $50-$75 per coyote trapped to a flat fee of $500. However, Council rejected going that route after the trappers said the animals would be relocated to a fox pen in Lancaster County, meaning it could be inhumane, and because neither trapper carries or plans to carry liability insurance.

The strategic plan is expected to evolve over time, but the coyote problem is not going to go away, according to experts. Funderburk stressed that coexistence is not a passive approach and that residents who prefer not to have coyotes for neighbors have a responsibility to be inhospitable to them. Mainly, that means not leaving food and water outside for pets and other wildlife. Potential food sources for coyotes include trash and compost heaps.

“Mount Pleasant had a big success training and teaching folks about hazing the animals,” Funderburk said.

“Don’t make them comfortable. Loud noises. Spotlights. Make them not feel comfortable. The problem is, one house is not making them feel comfortable and the next house has deer feeders and bird feeders and things like that, and they’re inviting all the animals from the forest out.”

Successful coyote management is a multi-pronged approach, Funderburk said.

“The biggest message I’ve heard loud and clear from the multiple conversations with SCDNR is that…it’s not going to go away just by trapping and killing or relocating. This is going to be a constant, forever type thing if this is what Council wants to take on,” he said.

The Tega Cay Police Department in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources will be responsible for designing and implementing public education measures. The TCPD will also use police reports going forward to record and map coyote interactions. Updated mapping data may be used quarterly or semiannually to reassess the situation, Funderburk said.

City Councilman Ryan Richard said he favors active measures to reduce the coyote population.

“If we don’t try, nothing’s ever going to change,” he said. “It could go either way, but I’m definitely open to suggestion on either continuing to look (for qualified trappers) or just sticking with the management plan…I’m all about giving it a shot. You can’t get on base if you don’t take a swing.”

Richard raised the possibility of individual citizens contracting with trappers. The Tega Cay code does not prevent residents from doing so on their own property, Funderburk said, although firearms and poisons may not be used, and all state laws must be followed.

“They could not do it on city-owned property…but there’s nothing in the code that would prevent someone from putting a trap on their own property,” Funderburk said.

“They would assume the liability and everything else on it. It’s not something I would encourage, but if they’re doing it on their property, currently right now in the city code there’s nothing that prevents them from being able to do so.”

City Councilwoman Dottie Hersey again raised concerns about unintended consequences of trapping.

“I still have the same fear. My fear is other things—people, animals getting caught in traps,” she said.

Citing conversations with the two trappers from Fort Mill and Chester, Funderburk agreed that’s a valid concern.

“Both of them use leg traps,” he said. “They use bait to lure them in (and) both caught pets in the traps before.”

Funderburk did point out that the traps do not close all the way and the trappers he spoke with said that the dogs caught in the traps were not hurt. Other residents have mentioned incidents of cats being killed by coyote traps, however.

“These traps do not discriminate. Anybody or anything that steps in them would set them off, but they don’t completely close,” Funderburk said. “They leave a gap, so it may break the skin, but it would not break the leg. That’s how it was described to me.”

Funderburk is scheduled to return to council in January with financial quotes and his recommendations for trapping and euthanizing the animals in some of the areas where incidents are most frequent.

Tega Cay’s Coyote Management Program document is available online at tegacaysc.org.

This story was originally published December 21, 2016 at 12:29 PM with the headline "Tega Cay tackles coyote issue with tracking, management; trapping discouraged."