Video: Town Council Backs Coyote Hunt with Change in Gun Law, Hunter to Start in Two Weeks

With the support of the Town Council on Monday night, the police chief’s plan to bring in a professional hunter to target problem coyotes in Middletown is moving forward, with the rifleman expected to begin in as soon as two weeks.

In a unanimous vote, the Town Council approved a change to a local hunting law that gives the Middletown Police Chief the authority to issue a special permit to a licensed hunter to use a rifle to shoot coyotes. The Department of Environmental Management (DEM) permits the hunting of coyotes year-round, but the town ordinance specifies the use of only a shotgun for nuisance wildlife.

Middletown Police Chief Anthony Pesare explained that the rifle is a more effective weapon when hunting coyotes and that the expert the town will seek to hire has had experience hunting coyotes for other municipalities throughout Rhode Island for more than 20 years.

The measure passed Monday night is narrow in scope, in that it does not enable all licensed hunters to now use a rifle to shoot coyotes.

The change in law will enable only a hunter armed with a rifle working directly with the Middletown Police Department, under the guidance of local coyote expert Dr. Numi Mitchell, to target specific coyotes in specific problem areas, Pesare emphasized.

The council's decision followed more than an hour of testimony, in which a fairly equal number of opponents and supporters made impassioned pleas for and against the measure.

After most council members indicated their support for Police Chief Pesare's plan, the discussion ended in a heated exchange in which two opponents in the audience stormed out just before the council voted. One of the women was Shana Gaines, a Newport resident who had presented a petition with roughly 300 signatures from people who opposed the planned hunt. 

Of those who gave public testimony Monday night, nearly all spoke less about the technicalities of the ordinance change and more to the general issue of whether the Town of Middletown should hire a hunter to eliminate coyotes. All speakers who said they supported the police chief’s plan were from Middletown, while opponents included residents from Middletown as well as from Newport. One opponent identified herself as a Warwick resident.

Gaines urged Middletown officials to take more time to consider alternatives to reduce Aquidneck Island’s coyote population. She noted that other options are being used and studied in communities elsewhere in the United States, including the intentional sterilization of female coyotes through targeted food supplements and tested howling devices that could drive coyotes from territories. She said that many opponents to the planned hunt would be willing to help figure out alternatives and possibly funding sources.

A supporter of the chief's plan, Middletown resident Steven Fagan reiterated his concerns that he had voiced at previous meetings about escalating coyote attacks, citing his own research and examples from other suburban communities in the United States.

Other residents supporting the measure described seeing coyotes during daylight hours in populated areas, despite the fact that coyotes are nocturnal hunters and by nature are normally fearful of people.

Following the meeting on Monday night, Chief Pesare said the next steps would be for the town to hire the hunter, issue the necessary permit and work with Aquidneck Island coyote expert Dr. Numi Mitchell to identify those coyotes to be targeted and those that should not be harmed, such as coyote pups, nursing female coyotes and collared coyotes that have been the subject of the Narrangansett Bay Coyote Study.

Pesare estimated that the hunter would be able to start in about two weeks.

Several local residents who spoke Monday night described problems and increased pack sightings in more populated neighborhoods such as the Wolcott Avenue area and near the Aquidneck Elementary School.

Chief Pesare previously described the four main areas where the hunter would focus efforts as around Prospect Avenue, Kempenaar Valley, Reservoir Road and the area of View Avenue and Compton View Drive.

Along with Pesare, Town Council President Art Weber and other town officials noted that the coyote hunt would be one component of a multi-layered plan in which Middletown, along with Portsmouth and Newport, would implement both short-term and long-term solutions for coyote management that would set out to foster best practices for co-existence after the population was reduced to a more manageable, stablized level and the most aggressive problems coyotes were eliminated as public safety threats.

Portions of both sides of this debate that took place before the Town Council Monday night are available to view in the image gallery above.