Ironically, it was Cliff's ease around humans that made him a 'problem animal'

Yellow-eyed, thick-coated Cliff may well be one of the best-looking, even-tempered, and closely-watched coyotes inhabiting Aquidneck Island.

But because he's grown far too comfortable around people — relying on humans for food, sauntering down streets in broad daylight, and sunbathing on lawns even as they're being mowed — his days are now numbered.

Middletown's police chief, with the blessing of a local coyote expert who has been tracking the GPS-collared Cliff, has directed a hunter to find the animal and shoot it.

"It's sad," said Numi Mitchell, director of the Narragansett Coyote Study, which has focused its research on Aquidneck Island coyote populations. "You get fond of the individuals because you know them."

She added, "Now there's a face to this issue. That face is Cliff. He's an attractive animal. He looks like a dog. He acts like a dog. But he's over the line. You can't have a coyote where you can't predict the behavior.

"If people use this as parable to save a lot of other coyotes from the same fate, it will be a good thing."

The lesson to be learned, Mitchell said, is that people need to let coyotes stay wild and feel unwelcome in their neighborhoods. Too often, she said, food scraps are discarded in unsecured rubbish containers or intentionally fed to coyotes by some animal lovers. People should make loud sounds, even throw rocks, to make human neighborhoods more frightening to coyotes, she said.

"Because he's such a cutie-pie, everyone sees this as just a lovely animal in their yard," she said. "He's become progressively more habituated."

In one of a long series of complaints about the fearless Cliff, a woman recently described being at a bus stop with her young daughter when Cliff came close, completely unfazed. But Mitchell said she had no reports that Cliff had been preying on cats or small dogs.

In July, Mitchell and a hunter sought to put some fear into Cliff. They tracked the animal down and shot it with nonlethal rubber buckshot. The "hazing" only seemed to have a temporary effect.

Cliff, who is 1½ years old, was collared in February. He's part of a pack of coyotes that roams in a roughly 3.5-square-mile area in Newport and Middletown. He earned his name because he has regularly been spotted in neighborhoods near Newport's Cliff Walk. He's been videotaped too for a piece called "Creating Urban Coyote."

"He takes a regular route every night by Dumpsters," Mitchell said. "He's a Dumpster diver."

Mitchell said research has shown that killing coyotes is ineffective at controlling their populations long-term.

"The population rebounds to the same levels, and that's whatever the food level will support," she said. "What's going on with Cliff shouldn't be confused with coyote management. This is lethal force to shoot one individual that's a problem animal."

For more information, go to the coyote study's web site and to another Mitchell helps run called Coyote Smarts.

—rsalit@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @RichSalit