Coyote Population Getting Out of Control?
(CODEN, Ala.) Nov. 6 - Gary Casper is best known as an alligator catcher. "I'm the nuisance alligator control agent with the Alabama Game and Fish," Casper says.
But this trapper for hire, who will cage all kinds of unwanted creatures, didn't have to travel far for this job.
"He was caught probably about three o'clock in the morning. He tried to kill the neighbors little dog about three nights ago and the big dog went out there and run him off. Then, I set the trap right out here in the front yard," Casper says.
He's talking about the fully grown male coyote that was sitting in his front yard Friday afternoon in a cage.
Casper lives in the country, but he says coyotes abound in the area. "Tillman's Corner, Highway 90 and Interstate 10, you know, there's really no place that's void of them. All the golf courses in the city have coyotes. "
A few years ago someone captured video of coyotes in Loxley. And for several years, Casper says he was hired to remove them for the city of Fairhope.
"In the very first year I took, I think 41, 42 coyotes out of the city limits," Casper says. "Our coyote problem has been growing for the last ten years, and they get very aggressive.
Casper says the problem is they are getting closer to homes in an area that was once their home. "So really the problem is humans," says Casper. "Human encroachment, you now we're taking away their habitat."
Casper believes the coyote population is growing because their prey, the deer population, has grown.
