Residents of posh Hudson River suburbs are torn over how to handle a bloodthirsty coyote tormenting the area.
After a coyote came just feet away from an unsuspecting toddler and mauled a small dog on June 12, Irvington, NY, police issued an urgent warning for locals to be on the lookout for the dangerous critters.
But a petition for the picturesque village to devise a plan to handle the coyote calamity sparked surprising controversy, with animal activists demanding the town keep its paws off the wild canine.
The roughly 6,500 people who live in picturesque village are no strangers to wildlife, but the two recent close calls left some parents and pet owners panicked.
Jia Altman was outside watching her two young children play when the coyote approached within two feet of her 3-year-old son riding a tricycle.
“I’ve seen them before in our backyard, but they’ve always just sort of trotted on through. They don’t tend to linger,” Altman told The Post.
“It took me a second to register, like, ‘OK, this is not good. This is something dangerous.’”
She snatched up her toddler while using the bike to fend off the coyote.
But the unfazed animal would not budge, so she began screaming at it. Her toddler started to cry, and finally her dog ran up to the coyote, causing it to scurry away.
“I was yelling, I was swinging his bike at it, and nothing I seemed to do deterred it,” Altman said.
“I really think that if my dog had not done that, it would have been probably a much worse situation.”
The coyote next ventured into Altman’s neighbor’s fenced-off yard, where her tiny rescue dog Becky was playing.
“The coyote dug a hole, got inside my fence and grabbed my dog by the neck,” Erin Reddy, a mother of two, said.
“I chased it around my backyard . . . as it was dragging my dog with its mouth on her neck.”
She watched the coyote whip her 5-year-old Malti-mix around in its mouth for several minutes as she did everything she could to scare it off.
Finally it dropped Becky and ran away.
“I can’t believe my dog lived through this . . . she needed 16 stitches,” Reddy said. “Her body went totally limp. I thought she was gone.
“I have a 7- and 8-year-old – they are in the backyard playing all the time.”
Police in Irvington and neighboring Hastings-on-Hudson issued warnings about coyotes roaming the area, telling residents to never leave their pets unattended.
Irvington police said they received a call for a coyote sighting on June 10 and five more calls on June 12.
Village officials issued a warning on Friday following several other reports this week, including sightings near an elementary school.
Irvington leaders said they are monitoring the situation with animal control and the Department of Environmental Conservation. They urged residents to be cautious of the “aggressive” wild animals, but said none of the coyote reports warranted trapping or removing them.
Hastings-on-Hudson cops said they received four coyote-sighting calls on June 14. On June 17, workers at Hillside Elementary School said there was one running on its field.
Reddy and Altman are frustrated with the village’s lack of response to the matter. They fear without proper protocol in place, more dangerous situations loom.
Professional wildlife trapper Jim Horton, the president of Westchester-based Quality Pro Pest & Wildlife Services, said combatting the coyote issue is easier said than done.
“The days of leaving your pet in the backyard – even if it’s fenced in – are over,” Horton said.
“Pets and children, don’t leave them unattended, always keep an eye on them, be close by.”
He said the problem may worsen in the fall, when coyote pups separate from their families and go out on their own.
“I really am afraid of what is gonna happen the next time,” Reddy said.
A petition with more than 330 signatures is calling for the village to hire a trapper to safely remove the animal.
But others don’t seem the least bit concerned.
“Irresponsible humans are the problem, not wild animals, start holding people accountable!” one woman wrote on Facebook. “There needs to be consequences for people’s actions in life.”
“They need to survive. Do not blame wildlife. Blame us for it. Do not leave your animals outside alone. You all know it, do not blame the coyote for it,” said another.
“Activists were going on about how ‘it had the right to be there,’” Irvington resident Daniel Powell reflected. “It doesn’t have the right to attack toddlers.”
Reddy also said the petition and overall notion to watch out for coyotes received “pushback.”
“I heard people say like, ‘I don’t want to hurt this animal,’” Reddy said. “But if this animal came up to my kids, it’s going to die.”