Three coyotes captured in Overlook neighborhood

More than seven weeks after launching a crackdown on roaming coyotes, a contractor working for the Columbus Consolidated Government has captured three coyotes in the Overlook neighborhood.

“We are very happy,” Drale Short, the city’s Special Enforcement Manager, said Thursday.

The city hired Jarrod’s Pest Control after residents in Windsor Park, which includes Heath Park, Brookstone, Green Island and Overlook, complained about the wild animals roaming the streets, paths at the park and walking on fences in backyards.

The coyotes captured last week in Overlook could very well have been part of a den, Short said. She recognized the efforts of the contractor to catch the coyotes and exterminate them.

“We got a contractor who is very diligent,” she said. “He is using best-practices to capture wildlife. Capturing wildlife is totally different than capturing domestic animals.”

To control the activity in other neighborhoods, Short said the effort is continuing with the resetting of hold traps.

“They are resetting traps and relocating to get the animal to accidentally step into them,” she said. “He is going to have to figure out what path they take.”

The new locations may help in the recent activity at Heath Park. When the trapping process first started, Short said a humane trap was used but wasn’t very successful. The hold traps keeps the animal in place until the device is checked.

Fresh bait will be placed in the traps and some will be relocated to a path possibly used by the coyotes.

“They say the bait that is there got to the point that it’s not attracting like they want it to,” Short said. “They have to take it up and remove the trap because the scent is going to be there. Hopefully, they reset it and catch something else.”

Before the trapper was hired, a resident of Overlook took a picture of a coyote perched on his fence. Officials can’t state whether that coyote was part of those captured in the neighborhood. The neighborhood is also home for Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson.

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Three coyotes captured in Overlook neighborhood."