Is garbage handling an issue?
In considering the problem of the growth of the coyote population in The Villages a question occurred to me. Note that this is only a question, not a suggestion that this is a solution.
I'm wondering how many plastic bags of garbage are being torn open by animals prior to pick up by the garbage trucks. If this is becoming a wide spread problem, perhaps it is related to the coyote problem.
There are three possible scenarios:
1. Coyotes are omnivorous. They may be tearing open the plastic garbage bags lying at the street awaiting pickup either for meat or for vegetable contents. The large quantity of food available from this source could eventually lead to a very large coyote population in The Villages.
2. Other smaller animals, such as rats, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, and others, may be getting into the garbage, which allows their numbers to grow, providing more prey for the growing coyote population in The Villages.
3. Both 1 and 2, above, are true.
It would be interesting if data could be gathered to determine if there is a widespread problem with garbage bags being torn open prior to pickup. If this is a problem, it may provide a clue to the increase in the local coyote population.
IF this were to be determined to be a factor in the rise of the coyote population, a possible solution would be to require all garbage to be in closed, hard plastic trash cans. This is the practice in Tampa, where these cans are designed to be picked up and dumped into a trash truck with an automated system which is a part of the truck. In Tampa, the cans are provided by the local government, and separate cans are provided for trash and for recyclable items.
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