Area residents may soon have legal authority to hire hunters to trap foxes.
The Winston-Salem City Council decided on April 19 to ask the N.C. General Assembly to pass an act directing the N. C. Wildlife Resources Commission to establish a season in Forsyth County for taking foxes with weapons and by trapping them in Forsyth County. Trapping foxes is now illegal in North Carolina. Any captured fox must be released.
Under state law, foxes may be taken with dogs on a year-round basis. In some cases, hunters are allowed to use firearms to kill foxes.
City officials said the new law is needed to make it easier to deal with coyotes, which many residents have reported in their neighborhoods.
Coyotes, like foxes, are common in Forsyth County, so common now that they are becoming a nuisance, raiding trash cans and sometimes preying on pets and farm animals, state wildlife biologists say.
City Attorney Angela Carmon told the council April 19 that without a local law allowing foxes to be hunted, trappers would not come to Forsyth County for nuisance coyotes, because of the possibility of catching a fox instead.
The laws governing both animals need to be consistent, she said.
At the meeting, Council Member Dan Besse said that trapping would not endanger the animals.
"We have a healthy fox population," he said.
A small pack of coyotes lives on the grounds of Children's Home in Winston-Salem. Those coyotes have spread to nearby areas.
A trapper working for the children's home caught a coyote last year. The animal was killed and stuffed.
George Bryan, the president of the Children's Home, displayed it to the city council at its meeting in mid-February.
City officials plan to meet soon with Forsyth County legislators and ask them to introduce the fox-trapping bill after the General Assembly convenes May 12 in Raleigh, City Manager Lee Garrity said.
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission receives about 100 complaints a year about foxes and coyotes from Northwest North Carolina residents, said Chris Kreh, a state wildlife biologist whose territory includes Forsyth and several other counties in the northwestern end of the state.
"Folks who have seen them are afraid that they are going to hurt them or their children," Kreh said. "It's not a real threat."
There are no reports of foxes or coyotes attacking people, Kreh said. However, he gets complaints from residents who see these animals going through their garbage or attacking livestock.
At the April 19 city council meeting, Besse said that while coyotes don't hunt in packs they are adept predators of small animals.
"It is wise not to let your cats wonder around at night when coyotes are present," Besse said.
jhinton@wsjournal.com
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