You can’t blame Laurie Turton for wanting to hire a professional killer.
In February, a wild dog murdered her pet cat near her town of Salina home. Laurie just wants justice.
So on April 9, she and some of her near Scottsdale Circle neighbors appeared before the town board to ask for help controlling the local coyote population. The wily coy dogs are plaguing suburban housing tracts from Maine to New Mexico. In recent years, they’ve been detected in Cicero, North Syracuse, and right here in Liverpool along the shore of Onondaga Lake.
Animal-control expert Al LaFrance spoke to the town Board April 9. He surmises that Salina’s killer coyote is losing its natural fear of humans. Al showed photos of children who had been attacked by coyotes across the country and offered his services to eliminate the varmints here once and for all.
Al thinks his trusty shotgun would do the job nicely.
Town Supervisor Mark Nicotra said that before LaFrance can start shooting, he would need to be granted an official exemption from the ordinance forbidding the use of firearms within Salina’s borders.
Rampant reproduction
It’s good to see local government apparently willing to finally do something about wild animals. I’ve been frustrated for years by the village of Liverpool’s reluctance to face the problem while its residents routinely suffer harassment from countless skunks, geese and coyotes. These critters ruin lawns and gardens, raid garbage bags and threaten pets and children.
So, I’d really like to support Al LaFrance and his approach to coyote control.
But there’s one big problem.
Killing coyotes doesn’t work.
Sure, you can fatally shoot a coyote, but others will simply step up to take its place.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, research suggests that when coyotes are aggressively controlled, the animals increase their reproductive rate by breeding at an earlier age and having larger litters. When their population is threatened, coyotes ensure a higher survival rate among their young. This allows coyote populations to quickly bounce back, even when as much as 70 percent of their numbers are removed.
Real-life coyotes are like movie zombies. Once you kill one, there’s a dozen more banging on your door.
Skunks for lunch?
Longtime Salina resident Deanna Coyne Lynch would prefer the town to take aim at skunks, those noxious nocturnal nuisances. In fact, Deanna’s good common sense tells her that the over-population of skunks here could well be what’s attracting the carnivorous coyotes.
“If you don’t bother coyotes, they don’t bother you,” Lynch said, “but skunks hide under porches or under cars and wait for you so they can spray. They eat through trash cans… Maybe the coyotes are drawn here because we do have so many skunks.”
Dick Clark at WOLF
Dick Clark, the rock’n’roll broadcasting pioneer who got his start in Syracuse, died April 18 in Santa Monica, Calif., at age 82.
In 1947, Clark enrolled at Syracuse University where he majored in business and joined Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. His favorite haunt was “Radio House,” a student-run campus radio station. Before long, Clark was managing the school’s official radio outlet, WAER-FM.
During his senior year at SU, Clark secured his first professional radio gig at WOLF-AM.
According to Ron Wray’s History of Syracuse Music website at ronwray.blogspot.com, Clark called WOLF owner T. Sherman Marshall who arranged an audition for the young man from Mount Vernon. WOLF program director Ham Woodle liked when he heard and Clark took over behind the microphone first working weekends and later hosting “The WOLF Buckaroos,” a show which featured music by Eddy Arnold, Marty Robbins, Gene Autry and other popular county-western stars.
Dick Clark earned a dollar an hour at WOLF working morning, midday and evening shows until July 1951. After that he headed east to Utica’s WRUN radio, a station owned by his father. Clark took his first television gig with WKTV in Utica. He changed his name to Dick Clay and hosted a country music show as “Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders.” In six short months he joined Philadelphia’s WFIL-TV where he soon became the host of “Bandstand.”
And the rest, as they say, is history…
