Arvada police, Colorado Parks and Wildlife to discuss reported coyote aggression in neighborhoods

CBS News

4 hours ago

Police in Arvada said they've received more reports of dogs hurt or killed by coyotes in recent months. The reports are coming from neighborhoods near Lookout Park, where two different dens of coyotes have taken up residence. Now Colorado Parks and Wildlife is getting involved.
Sara Mullinix, a Lookout Park resident of Arvada, has been living in the neighborhood for five years and remembers the first time she came face-to-face with a coyote.
"I was down in the open space running by myself, and I saw a coyote and a pup," she told CBS Colorado. "I was freaked out by it."
While initially unnerving, she, like many others in the area, is now used to their presence.
"I see people around with their dogs and children, and it's like 'huh, there's another coyote'," she explained. "They did scare me a bit, but now I just know they're a part of where we live."
Others in the area say that the problems have started to come to a head, so much so that on Monday, Aug. 11 at the Whisper Creek Station, the Arvada Police Department and Colorado Parks & Wildlife will be holding an event helping residents live and coexist with the wild animals that make the open space home.
Some residents have taken to social media, bringing up concerns about pet deaths in the area and attacks on family dogs by coyotes coming onto their property. Holly Cheong has never had such problems in her ten years in Lookout Park but has had moments where she's known to step out of the way of the wildlife.
"That was the first time I went towards it, and it wouldn't move," she remembers. "I didn't know why it wouldn't move, and then I saw the little babies, and yeah... I don't mess with moms and their kids."
While most in the Lookout Park area indicated to CBS Colorado that they were, more or less, accustomed to the routine coyote sighting on the street, others online expressed fear about the possibility of coyotes attacking another pet or even a small child. Colorado Parks and Wildlife says on their website that coyotes can lose fear of humans in urban settings and notes that if a coyote den is nearby in open space to contact that park's managing authority. Residents believe that there are two in the gulch near the Leyden/Lookout Park area.
But in spite of the concerns, longtime residents like Cheong say having to co-exist with the animals that have historically made their homes in the foothills is just a part of living life in those types of spaces, noting that it felt as though there were more wild animals when she first moved in.
"There was a lot more," she said. "My neighbors saw a moose and it was a little more extreme. Since it's filled out, we just have more urban wildlife like coyotes."
Monday's meeting will take place between 5:30 and 7 p.m. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has more information about living with wildlife in urban spaces online.