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"Coyote problems spur ordinance change

By KRYSTAL DE LOS SANTOS McKinney Courier-Gazette
Last night, the McKinney City Council approved an amendment to the city's firearms discharge ordinance that allows Collin County Regional Airport staff to shoot coyotes and other animals that are causing safety problems on the runway.

The current ordinance prohibits shooting firearms except at National Rifle Association approved or government-owned gun ranges or “by any authorized person participating in a bird harassment program to mitigate bird hazards near (CCRA) or the McKinney landfill.�

The proposed ordinance changes the wording in that ordinance by replacing “bird harassment� and “bird hazards� with “wildlife management� and “wildlife hazards.�

The slight change in wording allows the airport to expand its wildlife management from shooting pyrotechnics to “shoo� birds away from the airport to as a last resort, kill animals that are posing flight hazards.

Airport Operations Manager Chris Rozansky called the amendment a “public safety issue.�

According to city documents, airport staff has recently seen an increase in the number of coyotes at the property. During November alone, the wild canines were spotted on the runway at least five times. Staff chased them off the city facility with a truck.

The bird harassment program, approved in 2002, focused primarily on keeping seagulls that were attracted to the nearby McKinney landfill away from the aircraft. After the closing of the landfill airport staff have spotted few seagulls. However, with recent dry conditions coyotes have been more actively seeking food and water supplies.

“What they do is they live out to the east in the open areas and this time of year, food is scarce,� Rozansky said. “They want to get closer to the city to find food, and to do that, they have to cross the airport.�

While the airport has a fence, it does little to keep the determined and hungry wild dogs from digging under it and trespassing at the CCRA. Coyotes are more intelligent than the birds to which the harassment ordinance was tailored, Rozansky said.

“It's not just an issue in this airport, but worldwide,� he added about the coyote problem.

Between 1990 and 1998, twenty thousand wildlife strikes were reported nationwide, he said. Five hundred of those were from mammals, and 100 were from coyotes.

“We're very proud of the wildlife program because it's so unusual for a general aviation airport to have one,� he said. “It's just another way that we make sure that the airport is safe for the flying public and the non-flying public.�

But the amended ordinance does not mean that airport staff will shoot first and ask questions later. Rozansky said that the program includes several methods to rid the runway of pests.

The first is preventative in nature. Airport staff eliminates food, water and shelter sources. So far, they have cleared 50-plus acres of trees and keep grasses low to remove the potential for critters to set up camp on the city facility. Airport policy also forbids landscaping using fruit-bearing trees.

“Once you've done everything you can with habitat management, you move to harassment,� Rozansky said. “If that proves to be ineffective, the last resort is trapping or lethal methods like shooting.�

To shoot coyotes in the state of Texas, one must be a licensed hunter. There is no bag limit and the animals are on the “quarantine list,� which means they cannot be transported live, so trapping would not be feasible.

“The firearms discharge ordinance already enables us to harass birds. We're just adding coyotes to it,� Rozansky said. “So we're able to provide the safest airport we can.�"