According to this article:
Coyotes Create Problems for Residents in Steiner Ranch
CBS 42 Reporter: Julie Simon
Email: jlsimon@keyetv.comSome furry critters are making themselves at home in the Steiner Ranch area and neighbors say the animals are definitely not welcome.
Coyotes in that part of town are getting more and more brazen. Some residents won’t even go outside and enjoy the Greenbelt, which drew them to move to Steiner Ranch in the first place.
Linda Van Cleave is an animal lover and has lost eight cats to coyotes.
“For the first several I thought someone had taken them … then I actually caught one happening and that’s how I knew it was coyotes,” Van Cleave said.
Van Cleave had a personal run-in with a coyote at her back fence three weeks ago.
“Sure enough there was a coyote standing there. I yelled at him and he didn’t move he just stood there,” Van Cleave said
Jean Denzel lives across the street from Van Cleave. Denzel uses her binoculars to watch coyotes get dangerously close to people as they walk along a path in Steiner Ranch.
“The coyotes aren’t afraid of anybody. We’ve used air horns, we’ve used whistles it doesn’t even stop them from growling. They could care less,”
Denzel said.“All we want to do is remove it. I mean kids play back here and we want him to be safe we don’t want him shot or killed. We just want him taken someplace where he can be in the wild,” Denzel added.
Since Steiner Ranch is not in the city limits, it’s not the city’s responsibility to trap the coyotes. Travis County has no one on staff who can actually remove a coyote. Animal Control will only take a report.
There was a similar problem in the Northwest Hills section of Austin but a trapping program organized by the city helped alleviate it dramatically.
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