Coyotes scare neighbors near Trump golf course. Leash your pets, wildlife official warns
Alarmed residents of a Lake Norman subdivision alerted their neighbors on NextDoor to what one woman called a “frenzy of coyotes” late Tuesday.
The woman — a resident of The Farms community, which is off Brawley School Road not far from the Trump National Golf Club — said she heard multiple coyotes howling when she walked onto her deck around 9:30 p.m.
“The noise was so loud and violent with their yelping,” the woman reported on NextDoor.
Her neighbor, she said, had days earlier seen a pack of six coyotes crossing nearby McKendree Road.
“We have never had a roaming pack since we moved here in 2006,” the woman posted. “I have only seen one since we moved here — it was so healthy and big— not at all like the coyotes from Palm Springs, California.”
Reacting to the woman’s wildlife report, another resident said coyotes likely explain why some cats had disappeared.
In an interview, Sgt. Ron Robertson of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission told The Charlotte Observer that no one called the commission to report possible coyotes in the Lake Norman area as of late Wednesday morning. He is the state wildlife officer for Iredell County.
The reports of coyotes, though, didn’t surprise him.
Coyotes live all over North Carolina. And they’re more active now, Robertson said, because it’s mating season, which runs January to March.
“Coyotes are here to stay, and we’ve got to learn how to co-exist with them,” he said.
“At my house, I hear them howling every night,” Robertson said. He lives northwest of Iredell County near the Wilkes-Alexander county line, he said.
Robertson advised residents to leash their pets when walking them outdoors. Coyotes see such small animals as prey, according the wildlife commission’s website.
Coyotes are not native to the South. In North Carolina, the first coyotes were spotted in the western part of the state, in the 1980s, according to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
While coyotes are not normally aggressive toward humans, some fear the predators or think of them as nuisances.
One person in Lake Norman responded to the recent sightings, writing on NextDoor: Coyotes are “invasive.” Another agreed they should be hunted and killed.
But a neighbor down the street, whose profile says she lives in the Trump golf course community, suggested humans look in the mirror.
“We are taking their habitat,” she wrote. “Every time a new house goes up. We should probably be thinking about what we can do about that, instead of wanting them hunted and killed.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 3:41 PM.