BIXBY, Okla. — Bixby residents are voicing concerns about losing pets and smaller livestock due to a recent increase in the coyote population.
"They have grown as a pack," Jeremy Hall said. "It started off, I believe as just one or two. I think they have grown over the years, had a few litters."
Hall has lived in his Bixby home for seven years. He tells us, in his neighborhood coyotes are spotted on a daily basis.
"They either come right though here, or they will come right in front of the nursing home on this highway," Hall said.
Hall says Coyotes are like dogs, they learn where they can and cannot hunt.
"There is an old shed back in here. It used to be a horse pasture, there is not any horses in there now but there is an old horse barn where I believe they have a den," Hall said.
Residents like Dustin Scrito thinks something should be done about it.
"Oh yea, everyone around here that owns a cattle ranch," Scrito said. "They go out there and they hunt them. I have a bunch of friends who hunt them and all that. They kill quite a lot."
Dustin Scrito says he's lived in Bixby for his entire life.
He says coyotes have always been a problem, but recently things have become increasingly worse.
Scrito tells us every night he hears at least five to ten coyotes howling near his home.
A recent Facebook post about coyote sightings in Bixby has nearly three hundred comments.
People are upset about attacks on pets and smaller livestock, like chickens, but not everyone agrees the coyotes should be removed though.
"The only option here is to trap them, and there is just not a lot of people who do that," Hall said.
Hall believes the coyotes and residents can live in harmony.
"Just as any of us would do, the animals have adapted to us," Hall said. "I think we should adapt to them."
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