As spring starts to blossom, the weather gets warmer, and the wildlife starts to grow. Included in this wildlife are predators of the forest: coyotes. Officer David Littlewood, 26 year veteran of the Braintree Animal Control responded to many calls last week in the Patty Whitehouse Scenic Overlook, in Parkland off Glenrose Avenue.

“We got multiple reports that people on the path or in the area of the path were being chased by a coyote.”

When Littlewood approached the site he was able to recognize that it was a mother and her children who had made a den in the area. He recognized her behavior right away. 

“It’s called escorting, where they’re just running out, charging you, and basically telling you [to] stay away!”

Not wanting to disturb the animals, the force was able to come up with a solution to keep everyone safe.

“We just put a barrier up. We put a sign up, just warning people, [that] there’s a coyote down here, be careful, just so we can be proactive about it.” 

Through the years, Braintree residents have had an increasing amount of coyote sightings, which leads to increasing Animal Control calls. Are there really more coyotes than before? No. There is a particular reason why there are increasing sightings in the last few years. 

“Everything’s up because of the overdevelopment. So when you take away their woods, they move into the suburbs. Now they’re being pushed to the suburbs [with] barrels of food out each week with half-eaten turkeys, pizzas, and hot dogs.”

The unease within Braintree residents is more caused by the sightings in residential areas where coyotes and foxes just stroll by people.

“With all the overdevelopment, they get forced into the neighborhoods. There’s like a ripple effect to it. So basically you’ve had 4 generations of coyotes born into the suburbs. So they have no fear of people. They are used to people. They walk by you like a dog.”

Officer Littlewood describes how to get Braintree to not be so worried about the creatures we can live in harmony with. 

“We try to just educate them about it. If you have trash, try to bag it up. When your trash gets empty, try to rinse out your barrel, maybe pour a little bleach because the smell is still there. And that’s what they go off of. And if you have any bird feeders, and you see coyotes around, take them down for a bit, because bird feed attracts chipmunks and all the small animals coyotes prey on.”