ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Michael DiFrancesco spends his nights up in a tree overlooking his 12-acre homestead, where the former Marine hopes to catch the coyotes that have been killing his livestock during the past two weeks.

Northern St. Lucie County has a coyote problem that has been escalating over the past several months, according to county Animal Control Officer Ricardo Pellot.

“The coyotes are everywhere,” Pellot said. “I’ve seen three killed by cars on Kings Highway. It’s been about six or eight months since we’ve noticed them coming out more.”

DiFrancesco, whose homestead is off Okeechobee Road, just west of Florida’s Turnpike, knows that all too well: He recently lost four animals to the ever-daring and clever creatures.

“Last week I lost two sheep and two goats to the coyotes,” DiFrancesco said. “So far I can’t catch them. They took three babies, one lamb and two goats and tore them to shreds. The last one they took was a big 120-pound sheep right up by the fence.”

Animal Control has been out to set large dog traps in hopes of catching them. But DiFrancesco has found out how smart the coyotes can be: No new tracks have been sighted since the traps were set.

“I have been sitting out at night until 3 a.m., but they are smart and they say that they can smell us from afar. So I haven’t seen them yet,” he said. “They dig under the fence and kill them right there, because they know they can’t take the kill with them. It’s been literally 50 to 60 feet from my mailbox.”

DiFrancesco said he hears them howling at night — even his three Labradors join in the howling.

“I’ll get them eventually,” says DiFrancesco.

According to a University of Florida study, coyotes are Florida’s newest predator. They have a home range of more than 3,000 miles and are increasing in population. The reason for the increase may be due in part to the lack of competing predators like the red wolf, black wolf, grizzly bear and puma.

Pellot has a theory on why the county is having this sudden increase in activity and sightings so close to town.

“They could be migrating from the north,” he said. “But with all the people building houses (in these new areas) they have to go somewhere.”

By Jeff Rubin, TCPalm.com

Tags: coyote

This entry was posted on Friday, December 26th, 2008 at 10:08 am and is filed under St. Lucie County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.