MADRAS - Residents of Coweta County say they're seeing more coyotes in the Madras area. <br>
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Dave Harris took his small dog out for a walk last week in the parking lot at Madras Middle School. He says he was talking to his daughter on a cell phone when a coyote dashed out from behind his car, grabbed the dog and ran off with it. <br>
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Harris chased the coyote but never found it or his dog. <br>
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Coyotes have inhabited the western United States for years but were brought east in the late 1960s by fox hunters. <br>
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Jason Chapman is a wildlife technician with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Game Management Department in Fort Valley. He says hunters brought the coyotes east because their hounds preferred chasing coyotes to foxes. <br>
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Chapman says coyotes - as well as bear, deer and other game animals - are being spotted more each year as development encroaches on their habitats. <br>
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He says the coyote snatching the dog in daylight is unusual because coyotes are noctural and usually hunt at night. <br>
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Neil Jackson owns Newnan Seed Store. He has seen coyotes in his pasture in the Madras area and at his home on more than 100 acres near Grantville.
