'Enough is enough': Nahant residents call for changes after coyote kills dog
NAHANT - For 15 years, JJ the silky terrier was a little bundle of fun. On Saturday night, a coyote attacked him as Chris Del Dotto walked the little guy on a leash right in front if his house on Colby Way in Nahant.
"I just heard a horrible scream from my dog," said Del Dotto. "So, I turned around and the coyote had him in its jaws."
The coyote dropped the dog when Chris charged at it, but it came toward Chris again a number of times as he retreated to the house. JJ died later at the vet. Yet another victim in a long list of similar attacks in recent years.
Clearly, the select board in Nahant recognized a problem last December, when the town became the first in Massachusetts to partner with the feds, enlisting sharpshooters to track and kill aggressive coyotes.
The number of coyotes killed isn't clear, but residents routinely report sightings from neighborhood streets to the golf course, where several will sometimes surround a dog walker.
"At some point enough is enough, something has to give," said Holly Yeager. She said a coyote bit her dog Barley and worries about their next target.
"God forbid my child comes out the front door and the coyote is sitting right here, and guess what, I'm hungry," she said.
Nahant's situation is unique, because it's a densely settled peninsula, 3000 residents on one square mile, with plenty of ocean bluffs for coyote dens, but almost no other real estate that isn't packed with people. Residents say they've had little luck using whistles and air horns to scare them off.
"It's not right that you can't have a pet without being in fear of it being eaten in front of you when you take it out for a walk," Del Dotto said.
Del Dotto is urging his town to do more and telling his neighbors to walk their pets with a golf club or baseball bat in hand, even though neither will bring back JJ.