Coyote sightings disturbing residents in Olney

Wildlife officials say coyotes are becoming more common

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006

Several coyote sightings throughout the Olney Oaks community have left many residents fearful.

Dennis Bourque, a board member of the Olney Oaks Homeowners Association, said he first noticed the problem several months ago.

‘‘We used to have thousands of rabbits around, and then we noticed they were disappearing,” he said. ‘‘We thought they had just moved on, but then we started seeing head and body parts, so we knew there was something that was getting them.”

One morning in November, Bourque was returning home from work at about 2 a.m. when he saw an animal on the corner of Carrisa Way and Carrisa Lane eating something.

‘‘At first we thought it was a dog, but we didn’t recognize it, and it was really skinny,” he said. ‘‘We stopped, and it snarled at us, grabbed what it was eating, and ran off.”

After doing some research at the library, Bourque was confident the animal he had seen was a coyote.

Bourque called the county’s Animal Control Division and was told the division had received other reports of coyotes in the area, and attributed the increase in recent sightings to development on Bowie Mill Road.

Development, many wildlife officials say, drives the coyotes out of the more wooded areas into residential communities. The living patterns of deer and fox also are affected by development.

Ken D’Loughy, regional manager for the Wildlife and Heritage Service, a unit within the Maryland Department of Natural Resources based in Gaithersburg, said the unit does get a lot of calls concerning coyotes and foxes, but he doesn’t recall any reports specific to Olney.

‘‘Foxes are common. They’ve become part of the landscape throughout the county, and people are beginning to see more coyotes,” he said. ‘‘It may be related to development. Foxes are very capable of living in very close proximity to people, and coyotes exhibit the same adaptability.”

Steve Bartlett, field supervisor for the county’s Animal Services Division, agreed.

‘‘Over the last 10 years or so, we’ve gotten more and more calls on coyotes,” he said. ‘‘I am not aware of any in Olney, but we have gotten calls from Rockville, Potomac and Silver Spring. They’re definitely out there.”

There had also been reports of foxes in the Olney Oaks area, Bourque said, adding the county was able to trap them.

‘‘They can’t trap the coyotes because unlike foxes that live in dens, coyotes are vagrants and move from one place to the next,” he said.

Bourque then received a call from a neighbor who explained that a coyote had gotten in his back yard and was trying to jump over an eight-foot fence.

‘‘Within that week, we had five or six people call us reporting that they had seen a coyote,” he said.

At the annual homeowners association meeting on Jan. 25, Bourque said the topic of coyotes came up and a lot of people raised their hands with sightings or concerns.

‘‘We realized it was more than just an isolated thing,” he said. ‘‘We’ve gotten two more calls since that meeting.”

Bourque said that some residents are not taking the reports lightly. One woman will no longer let her dogs out in the back yard; instead, she takes them out front on a leash, he said. Another woman refuses to let her cat go outside alone, so she, too, uses a leash, Bourque added.

‘‘As far as we know, we haven’t had any people confronted or pets attacked, but there have been some reports of missing cats that have never been found,” he said.

John Flynn, Olney Oaks Homeowners Association president, said he wants people to be aware of the situation.

‘‘I don’t want to hear that someone’s pet got nailed, and I don’t know if it would hurt a small child, but we just need people to be cautious,” he said.