HARVEY, La. — Rita Buquoi enjoys sitting on the back patio of her home in Harvey’s Woodland West subdivision. This week, Buquoi looked across the field behind her house and noticed she was not alone. She snapped a picture of two large coyotes, sitting in the grass.
“The mother and the father are sitting outside the pipe because they’re living in that pipe right over there and its five or six pups inside with them,” Buquoi said.
Neighbors on the east bank have also spotted coyotes most recently in the subdivision surrounding the Cenacle Retreat House. Some have complained that the animals have been feeding on the feral cat population there.
Tuesday morning, Joe Andrade, a nuisance wildlife control operator, trapped two coyotes in the 20-acre site near Avron Boulevard and St. Mary Street. I put the traps out about a week ago when the sightings started ramping up again and I caught one of them maybe three o’clock in the morning and the next one came through maybe around five.
Wednesday, the Jefferson Parish Council is expected to approve the money to hire additional trappers to catch coyotes where they’ve been identified as a problem.
Councilmen Deano Bonano and Dominick Impastato are using district funds to help pay the estimated $60,000 price tag.
“We’re taking every measure possible and reasonable under the circumstances to address the problem,” Impastato said. “Undertake measures to eradicate and move those away, certainly away from residences and away from where there might be any risk whatsoever.”
Back in Harvey, Buquoi is hopeful the trapping will remove her immediate coyote problem, just 150 feet from her home.
“It’s alarming because my neighbors all have small pets, cats, dogs, and I have my granddaughter here,” she said. “Of course, I don’t let her out of the fence.”
JP leaders are asking neighbors to do their part by not leaving out food that would attract coyotes to their home and by keeping a close eye on their small pets.
The council’s plan will also include a series of public meetings to inform neighbors and the parish on the best way to mitigate the coyote problem.