Tensions ran high at a meeting on coyotes in Pleasantville Oct. 2. The village invited Kevin Clarke, a wildlife biologist from region three of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, to speak with residents about concerns that coyotes were a danger to their families and pets.

The DEC, said Clarke, has a “standard operating procedure for dealing with coyotes. Essentially, we can intervene at any time and issue a permit (for trapping) any time they meet the criteria for doing so.” The criteria include exhibiting dangerous behaviors such as threatening or attacking people and pets.

Coyotes that are trapped are killed. “We have no place to put them, it’s lethal removal,” Clarke said. He also said trapping and removing coyotes does not always solve the problem. “We don’t typically say you can trap one coyote and then leave it alone,” he said. “USDA trapped seven coyotes, and the next year seven more.”

One resident said she got a permit to trap a coyote she had seen near her puppy in her backyard. She told Clarke she once saw a cat in the coyote’s mouth. Another resident said her cat was missing and she believed a coyote was responsible.

“We’re not going to eradicate this problem,” said Mayor Peter Scherer. “We’re never going to be a circumstance where anybody never has to worry about a coyote being anywhere. It sounds like that coyote should be removed.”

“When the first reports of the coyote came out we contacted a trapper,” said Police Chief Erik Grutzner. “The trapper assessed the situation, and based on the totality of the circumstances, we decided the coyote was acting in acceptable ways and we were not going to trap the coyote.” In another case, Grutzner said a coyote was exhibiting bad behaviors and was removed.

Grutzner also said the village was working with the Town of Mt. Pleasant and Pace University to share information on coyotes. “We are all going to sit down together and try to come up with more of a global approach to this problem,” he said. “From what everyone is saying, there’s a coyote that needs to be removed. If we have a bad coyote and we can replace him with a good then hopefully we can move on with things.”

According to Clarke, the DEC became aware of the presence of coyotes in the 1970s but did not start receiving complaints about them until the 1990s.