Coyote caught in south Carson

Friday morning Kevin Burrows spotted something in his Jackson Way back yard.

It was a coyote, but it wasn't too wily.

"I came out the slider to water the flowers and check on the yard," Burrows said. "It was obvious within seconds that it was a coyote."

Burrows said the critter tried to jump his back fence and then appeared to run out toward the street.

"I thought she ran out to the street," Burrows said. "I got the phone and went out to look, but she was nowhere to be found."

Using his phone, Burrows called Carson City Animal Control officers to tell them about the visitor.

"They said I had to call Fish and Game. I called them but the Animal Control officers came out within 10 minutes."

Burrows said he walked back to the back of his house and looked through a small hole in the fence and found the coyote.

"There's a little space between mine and my neighbor's fence," he said. "It is usually a cat run, but now with the trees growing up, there are tons of birds back there."

The coyote wedged herself between the two fences and was hiding there when animal control officers arrived.

"It took them about an hour, they had to go get a big dog trap," Burrows said.

Once the trap was in place at one end of the fence, another officer drove the animal into the cage.

Burrows' neighbor Lesley Otto said her twin toddlers, Molly and Mallory, often play in her back yard.

"I was in the back yard and then I came into the house," Otto said. "(The twins) follow me where ever I go. I don't know if it would have hurt them."

Otto, a fifth-generation Nevadan, said this was a first for her.

"It was pretty exciting," she said. "I've never been that close to a coyote."

Once inside the cage, the coyote snapped and snarled at her captors.

"She was growling and gritting her teeth," Otto said. "She was not happy to be in that cage."

Otto said the animal appeared to be scrawny.

"She was really skinny and shabby-looking," she said.

Both Otto and Burrows are long-time residents of southern Carson City. Burrows said he was born here.

"I've lived in this house since 1970," he said. "There were only three other houses on the street when I was growing up. There was a field where we used to play, but I never saw one coyote. It was kind of out of the ordinary."

Burrows put it down to the increase in vegetation and wildlife in the area.

"The trees are getting so much bigger," he said. "The wildlife here has increased dramatically."

Animal control officers released the coyote in a remote area shortly after capturing it.