Cats and small dogs are missing, brazenly swiped before their owner's eyes or found mutilated. We are in the city of Seattle, not the outskirts. We chose to live in the city, not Issaquah or Woodinville, where you would more likely run into issues with wild animals.

Seattle, with all its hills, does lend itself to have lovely little greenbelts right within the city; but does that mean we must live with wild animals that the city or fishing and wildlife departments will not even address. We're not talking raccoons or opossums.

The solution, we're told, is to keep our pets inside. Our 18-year-old cat is on house restriction as we would hate for her to have lived such a long life and have it end violently.

We have lived in this house for 19 years. My children, 12 and 8, saw a coyote on March 22. Since then, the neighbor's cat across the street disappeared, I found coyote feces (looking much more like a pile of hair) next to my car door in my driveway, neighbors see coyotes casually walking up the street mid-morning, the other morning another neighbor woke up to find a coyote sleeping in her backyard, while the other night another neighbor saw a coyote starring at them through the fence while they were sitting around the backyard fire pit.

A friend told me that her neighbor last year in West Seattle had her Chihuahua snatched off her deck while she stood there. She tried running after the two coyotes, but was unsuccessful. Yesterday morning our neighbor right next door found her cat on the parking strip, dead and disemboweled.

It is absurd to say that we are to live with coyotes. It is not a reasonable solution to say that we are to cohabitate with wild animals - in the middle to Seattle. It is not reasonable to say we need to keep our cats and dogs inside our houses at all times. What needs to happen before action is taken? That Mayor Nickels' cat or dog (if he has one) end up as coyote food? That the 18-month old toddler three houses from us be carried off?

Cage them and remove them or more drastic measures, so be it. When we had bird mites enter our house because of a starling nest in our eaves, we called a business that handled this type of problem. The babies and nest were removed and disposed of, not relocated, I am quite sure. We have pet rats, we love them and coo over them, but I wouldn't want other rats in our house. I'm sure coyote pups are quite cute, however...

To say there's not much that can be done, because of the law prohibiting trapping, is hardly an adequate answer. A coyote problem, in my opinion is a far more serious problem, not merely affecting one family. There have been missing cat and dog flyers on utility poles for the last couple years in West Seattle, due to wild animals making homes in the middle of the city. Now they have made a home in my backyard.

There is such talk about the slumped housing market. Add to the list of houses not being able to sell their homes because of documented pet killings by coyotes. While the mayor is passionate about Seattle paving the way in emission reduction and carbon footprints, reducing the number of grocery bags in landfills, he may be leaving a powerful legacy of Seattle being a laughing stock, leading the nation in wild animal invasion. I envision a scene from a science fiction movie of some futuristic city at night overrun by hunting coyotes, people not leaving their high rises at night. Could that be Belltown or downtown Seattle in the next couple years?

Sherry Cejna

Fauntleroy