Tahoe airport officials try to match wits with wily coyotes

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 9:43 a.m.

So far, the coyotes seem to be winning.

Airport officials have claimed for some time that coyotes have disrupting operations,sunning themselves on the runway and nosing around for food.

After a series of meetings and discussions with city officials and local wildlife experts, they've decided that repairing and upgrading an existing perimeter fence is the next step in solving the problem.

The airport will take a big chunk of a recent $200,000 Federal Aviation Administration grant and use it to the fence project, which will go out for bid next month. Plans are to repair holes in the fence, and strengthen it with a string of barbed wire at the top and three feet of chain link on the bottom.

"This will prevent coyotes from climbing over, or burrowing under, we hope," said Lake Tahoe Airport Public Information Officer Janis Brand. "If this doesn't work, then we go back to the drawing board and say OK, what next?"

According to Brand, the coyotes have become so numerous and brash that they actually dart across the runway in front of moving planes.

But Mindy Johnke of Oasis Aviation, based at the airport, questions whether there's a serious coyote problem.

"It's been blown out of proportion," she said. "There has been no airplane chasing or anything like that. I saw one coyote last week, but that's all."

Johnke says the real problem is in the habitat surrounding the airport.

"Coyotes like to make their dens in the drainage pipes," she said. "If you close off those (outlets), they won't breed in there, and there won't be so many."