A Beaufort man heard coyotes near a popular dog park. What you need to know about them
Ben Smith heard the distinct high-pitch howl after a fire truck with sirens blaring passed near his Beaufort neighborhood Sunday evening.
To confirm his suspicion, he used a coyote call from his backyard. He had not finished making the sound when he heard the animal howl from the direction of Southside Park in Beaufort’s Mossy Oaks area. The reply was followed by yipping noises Smith interpreted as coyote pups.
Smith, a hunter, believes there is a female coyote with a den in the area of Southside Park’s dog park and nearby tennis courts along Battery Creek Road.
“All those people walking their dogs, if one of them gets too close to that den, it’s not going to be a good thing,” Smith told The Beaufort Gazette and The Island Packet.
He alerted neighbors on NextDoor, a social networking service that acts as a community bulletin board.
Responses included reports of other sightings in northern Beaufort County. A woman said one of the animals had charged her daughter at an apartment complex on Salem Road while her daughter held a small dog. The coyote, she said, was later spotted near a dumpster.
Another man said he saw a coyote cross the Spanish Moss Trail, a popular recreational path.
“We see coyotes throughout the county,” said Tallulah Trice, the county’s animal services director. “They are here.”
Animal control officers periodically receive calls of coyotes hit by cars, and the animals have been found to carry rabies, Trice said.
She plans to meet with local government officials throughout Beaufort County to pitch a plan to distribute baits that would vaccinate the animals in the wild.
Coyotes have been in South Carolina more than 40 years, according to state wildlife officials. They typically breed in late winter and feed on small mammals — even pets in suburban areas, where there might be few alternatives, the state wildlife agency says.
The animals prey on fawns; half of the young-deer deaths can be attributed to coyotes. Hunters who have a license are allowed to kill coyotes throughout the year, but no license is needed for someone to shoot the animals on their property within 100 yards of their home, though local gun laws apply.
Deer hunters reported killing more than 22,000 coyotes in 2018, according to a survey by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. Based on the number of animals reported killed by hunting and trapping, the agency said the number of coyotes is down more than 25 percent during the past five years.
Sightings remain fairly common.
Coyotes hunt at night, Trice said, so pets should be brought inside at dark.
“Where there’s encroachment of development, you’re going to have wildlife coming in, searching for food,” she said. “Any time you’re in an area where there’s wildlife, people just need to be aware of their surroundings and what they could come in contact with.”
