The town of Sullivan’s Island is encouraging its residents and visitors to be cautious, especially at dawn and dusk, after several reports of interactions with coyotes, including one involving a dog that was dragged into the Maritime Forest.
According the Police Department incident report, Caitlyn Marie Buxton of Florence, South Carolina, was walking on the beach near Station 26½ early in the morning of Aug. 26 with two unleashed dogs: her red lab puppy Penny and Willie Nelson, a brown adult terrier mix owned by Theo Jourdan of Mount Pleasant. Buxton told Capt. Christopher Wallace that two coyotes arrived on the scene, each of them chasing a dog in a different direction.
She said Willie Nelson took off toward Station 27, with a coyote in hot pursuit. She told Wallace that she ran after them but fell in the sand dunes, and, when she looked up, the predator was headed for the Maritime Forest with Willie in its mouth.
Buxton told Wallace that the coyotes were unphased by the presence of a human, and she added that also was the case when she returned to the scene looking for Willie Nelson sometime between 11 a.m. and noon. She said a coyote standing in a small pond near the Station 27 beach access path apparently didn’t care that she was nearby.
Twelve coyote-related incidents were reported to the Sullivan’s Island Police Department from Aug. 12 through Aug. 27, five of them involving attacks on dogs.
According to Town Administrator Andy Benke, the state Department of Natural Resources requires government entities that hire a trapper to choose one approved by DNR, which, Benke said, “is what we’ve been doing.” He pointed out that the cost is “probably on the expensive side because they have to come out twice a day to check the traps to make sure there’s not an animal there.”
He added that coyotes that are trapped must be euthanized because “DNR will not allow a coyote to be relocated.”
In a press release, Benke pointed out that coyotes live in every county in South Carolina and in 49 of the 50 states – Hawaii being the exception. He noted that they are most active at night and in the early morning and that most complaints come into the Police Department in the middle of the summer and during the fall, “when young coyotes disperse from their home ranges and establish new territories.”
“The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources has indicated that recent research has demonstrated that coyotes are compensatory breeders, meaning that they increase reproduction and immigration in response to human-induced killing of coyotes,” he added.
Local residents and visitors who encounter or interact with a coyote should call the Sullivan’s Island Police Department at 843-743-7200.
In a presentation to the Sullivan’s Island Town Council April 18, DNR wildlife biologist Jay Butfiloski noted that coyotes have been in South Carolina since 1978 and that there currently are around 2,000 of them in the Charleston metropolitan area, most weighing from 25 to 40 pounds. He said since they can swim, they might have taken a water route to Sullivan’s Island and the Isle of Palms but added that it’s possible that they simply walked across the Ben Sawyer Bridge or the IOP Connector.
He said a coyote’s normal diet consists of small mammals such as rats, mice and rabbits but that they have been known to feast on cats and small dogs. He added that “one reason they’re so successful is that they’ll eat anything – dead things, plants, vegetation, insects. It really doesn’t matter.”
Butfiloski pointed out that if you are threatened by a coyote, your best bet is to make lots of noise and throw things at the animal. He added that you should keep your dog on a leash and, if you come upon a coyote, don’t make a run for it. Instead, back away slowly
