BROOMFIELD, Colo. — A Broomfield family is grieving the loss of their beloved 3-year-old Scottish Terrier after a coyote attack in the Anthem Highlands neighborhood early Friday morning.
The Carwin family's dog Lucy, who weighed about 22 pounds, was dragged through several fenced-in yards by a coyote and killed.
"She was a very classic Scottie personality and independent, but also really loving," Amelia Carwin said. "And she just loved to burrow her little head into you when you would pet her."
The family heard barking and discovered Lucy was missing from their yard early Friday. That's when they said they immediately began searching their neighborhood.
"We started running up and down our street, using our phones as flashlights to try to see if we could find her anywhere," Amelia and her husband Bill said. "When we had gotten out to the backyard at one point, I thought I heard a whimper coming from that direction, which is where we ended up finding her."
Coyote attacks in the family's Anthem Highlands neighborhood date back more than a decade.
It became so dire in 2011 that experts were brought in and a study was conducted.
Incidents with coyotes attacking children and dogs became prevalent during the summer of 2011 in this Broomfield neighborhood, so CPW and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services began coyote removal efforts. This ultimately resulted in nine coyotes being euthanized. Investigators later determined that all of the incidents from the summer of 2011 likely involved one coyote, which was killed on Sept. 22, 2011.
Coyote experts and researchers were invited to come to Broomfield, investigate the issue and evaluate the policies and practices in place to see if there was anything additional the community could do.
By the end of the investigation, they listed out the following recommendations, noting that no single strategy would be 100% effective, but a variety of techniques would result in the highest effectiveness. These recommendations are copied directly from the study:
- Education: Continue to seek novel ideas to provide public outreach even when public interest is low.
- Inter-agency cooperation: Establish better lines of communication between agencies following an incident.
- Regulations: Broomfield may want to consider developing its own ordinance to prohibit feeding wildlife, in addition to state regulations. Continue to enforce the leash law.
- Habitat modification: Continue to mow buffers along trails and play areas and avoid landscape materials that attract coyotes.
- Hazing: Use outreach to teach citizens appropriate hazing actions and when hazing should be used. Document the types of hazing used. -Research: Continue participation in the Denver Metro Area Coyote Behavior Study as this will help to understand the impacts of hazing.
- Lethal removal: Although the panel recognizes that each community must determine when lethal control should be used, the panel suggests that Broomfield use multiple reports of human incidents or attacks on attended pets in a specific area or timeframe (days or weeks) as a criterion for consideration for lethal control. Full necropsies and genetic tests should be conducted if possible after a coyote is removed. Open communication with the public regarding removals is suggested.
- Future residential development: Location of public facilities/amenities should be carefully considered when reviewing development plans.
As of publishing time, there have been just two fatal coyote attacks on a person in North America: A 3-year-old child died after an attack in southern California in 1981 and a 19-year-old woman died of an attack in Nova Scotia in 2009, the study reads.
Most people who are attacked by a coyote are able to run away, however children can become the target of a predator attack, which is more serious. The study found that serious attacks on children account for about 37% of all attacks.
Fewer than 8% of coyote attacks include a rabid animal, the study added.
Pets
Deadly coyote attacks of Broomfield pets prompt warning from city officials
On Friday, Denver7 reached out to the City and County of Broomfield to find out if any of those mitigation efforts are still in place. A spokesperson referred us to their coyote information webpage while we wait to hear back.
"We have active text threads going with other families stating, 'Hey, just saw a coyote on these streets. Pull your dogs in, pull your kids in,'" Bill Carwin said.
The Carwins are now sharing this message to other families in the area, with hopes mitigation will take place soon.
"You just always have to be careful and don't even trust your yards," said Amelia.
Denver7 has been following the uptick in coyote attacks across the Denver metro. On New Year's Eve, we shared alerts from the Erie Police Department and Wheat Ridge Police Department about the issue.
Local
Colorado sees spike in coyote sightings as CPW urges safety
Kara Van Hoose with Colorado Parks and Wildlife highlighted the need for community education about coyote encounters and best safety tips. Some of her recommendations included keeping a pet close by and on a leash, along with being loud to help scare it off.
"It's good to just practice really good wildlife safety principles, both with children, with your pets, with yourself," said Van Hoose. "So when you're letting pets out into the backyard at night, you can have motion-activated lights that will kind of scare anything that might be in your backyard. You can just make noise before you let them outside, yelling, banging on pots and pans, playing loud music, that will kind of scare any sort of predators that might be there."
