METAIRIE, La. — Residents in a Metairie neighborhood say coyotes are terrorizing their block.
Darlene Villere's home surveillance shows coyotes coming out and surrounding her front yard. The coyotes then team up and attack her feral cats and carry one of them away.
"Two coyotes came up the other night and grabbed all three of them and killed them," Villere told Eyewitness News.
"Baby" was the cat killed in the coyote attack. Villere says she took Baby in 17 years ago and Baby became a part of the family.
"I found a half of one of them in the next block, my neighbors said they saw one of the cats and I went down there. That was half a baby, so I picked her up and brought her back home and buried her in my backyard."
She says she's lived in her house in Metairie on Haring Road for 21 years and not once has she ever seen a coyote, until this week.
"It's got to stop, they've got to get these animals out these neighborhoods, before something really, really bad happens."
Michelle Brignac, Director of the Jefferson Protection & Animal Welfare Services said the parish did get a call about the coyotes.
"Killing the coyotes is not the answer and they can't be relocated, ecological disruption is an issue which continues to happen...if we kill the coyote off, the prey animals will take over," Brignac said.
Eyewitness News was told there have also been sightings of coyotes here at the Archdiocese of New Orleans Retreat Center only a mile and a half from Villere's house.
Joe Andrade, a nuisance/wildlife control operator says coyotes have been caught in the area looking for food, and carry disease.
"A rabies vector species, meaning they could carry rabies, yet they don't show any signs, no foaming at the mouth... parva, distemper," Andrade said.
Villere said she just wants the animals out of her neighborhood.
"You hurt my baby, like you hurt my child, imma hurt you, you hurt my babies imma hurt them."
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