Pets & Animals

Coyotes Roam Attleboro Country Club

ATTLEBORO (WBZ) ― Krikee! Coyotes causing commotion and concern at a country club?

"We did hear them...this morning," Kelli Viera of Attleboro told WBZ's Ron Sanders as she tee'd up on the first hole at the Highland Country Club where last Thursday the head greenskeeper saw 13, yes 13, coyotes--most of them pups--gathered on the green.

Some of the club's 220 members have seen coyotes in greater numbers this season than the occasional ones spotted last year. Club president Kevin Bowler stood alongside the first fairway and told Ron that's where he saw two pups last week.

Bowler said a couple of coyotes made threatening advances at a greenskeeper on the driving range recently.

The greenskeepers and some of the members suspect a family of coyotes is living in between the range and the first fairway of the 100-year-old course off Mechanic Street in a residential neighborhood near downtown Attleboro.

The coyotes roam beyond their home on the range, according to some members.

"We saw a whole family of them, at least nine, playing in the bunkers on three," said one golfer.

Sounds like a job for Bill Murray of Bushwood.

The club president has contacted MassWildlife officials who, he says, plan to visit and look over the situation but, because coyotes are a protected species, removal would be a last resort.

They can be frightened by loud noises and bright lights but have come within about 30 feet of humans at Highland. Intriguing and humorous as the coyote concerns may be, Bowler says he does not see the problem as a country club issue but as a public safety issue.

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