Byline: Sheila Ahern Daily Herald Staff Writer
A pack of coyotes who call Arlington Heights home will soon have a new ZIP code.
The village will hire a private trapper to catch and remove several coyotes near Greenbrier Elementary School, said Capt. Richard Niedrich of the Arlington Heights Police Department.
"We're just looking at that area," Niedrich said. "There appears to be a concentrated issue in that area."
On Feb. 6, about 20 Greenbrier neighbors complained at an Arlington Heights village board meeting about brazen coyotes. Most of the neighbors worried about their dogs and virtually all wanted the coyotes removed from the area.
Marla Goldberg attended the Feb. 6 meeting. News that the coyotes will be trapped and relocated "made my day," she said.
Although police and some Arlington Heights residents agree on relocating the coyotes, other wildlife experts disagree.
Stan Gehrt, an assistant professor at Ohio State University, is wrapping up a six-year study of coyotes in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Once he tried to relocate 12 to 15 coyotes from Chicago to Kane County. In every case, the coyote left the new site in an attempt to return home, Gehrt said.
"They left the release site within 24 hours," he said. "It's part of their social system being a territorial species. They are going to try and get back to where they came from."
And since most Illinois areas already have coyotes, the Arlington Heights group won't be welcomed in DeKalb, Gehrt said.
"They will probably get kicked out, or worse," he said. "There is no place even in a rural area that is not already occupied by coyotes."
But the Arlington Heights Police Department said DeKalb is far enough away that the coyotes won't make it back, Niedrich said.
"The No. 1 cause of death for coyotes is getting struck by an automobile," he said. "The greater distance you move them, you increase the chance they won't make it back successfully."
Arlington Heights has been dealing with coyote concerns for months.
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