Randee Haven O’Donnell saw a coyote.
The Carrboro alderman said she was running on the OWASA easement trail in the Carolina North property between the Tripp Farm Road area and the western edge of the trail to Chapel Hill High School when she saw a coyote cross the trail ahead of her in the area of the beaver dam.
“In sharing this experience with some neighbors, I understand from them that coyote have been sighted at the Hogan property fields along old 86,” she writes in an e-mail to the mayor and fellow board members. “I am concerned as: the public does not realize that coyotes are present locally, (they are in all 100 counties of NC), coyote are rabies carriers and coyotes can/will attack young children.”
Haven O’Donnell then asks if anyone knows how many coyotes may be in our area and whether Animal Control has any concerns about them.
Mayor Mark Chilton writes back to say he’s not sure, but that coyotes have been reported in Orange County at least since 1997.
Read more about coyote sighting in the Triangle here.
