PASCO COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Chip Revels is sick to his stomach and wishes he would have known about coyote activity in the area before he let his little dog Bitzy out early Monday morning. That was the last time he saw her.
“She wanted to go outside to go tinkle and I let her out,” said Revels “Pretty scary. She was screaming and crying and I thought a bird had her or a hawk or owl so I came running and I wasn’t fast enough. I grabbed a lawn chair and went over there and the coyote had jumped the fence and got her.”
Revels lives in the Beacon Woods subdivision in Hudson in Pasco County.
It’s, by no means, a rural area in the county with a neighborhood with a golf course and tidily kept homes. He’d just recently moved into the home and thought coyotes steered clear of areas that are developed. That is not the case.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Foundation, coyote interactions in Florida are not uncommon. The agency has an area on its website dedicated to educating the public on how to avoid wild animals and how to safely scare them away.
Just last month, a coyote snatched a family’s small chihuahua from the front yard of their home in New Port Richey. The homeowner was able to scare the animal away, but it had already injured the pet so severely that it had to be put down.
Revels is sharing his story, hoping to educate the public so no one else will have to experience the loss he’s experiencing now.
“I don’t want anybody to go through what I’m going through right now,” said Revels.
For more information about coyote’s visit the FWC website.