WESTBROOK – Game wardens and both the Westbrook and Gorham police departments are warning residents that wild animals are roaming about more openly at this time of year in search of food to bulk up for the winter months ahead.

John Woods, who lives on Jackie’s Way in a Gorham subdivision, found this out the hard way.

Last Saturday night, he let his 11-year-old white Maltese outside, as he does every night, but when he went to let the dog in, he instead was met by tragedy – his dog was snapped up by a coyote.

“I saw a brown flash out of my eye, and I walked back maybe five feet to my pickup truck and got a flashlight,” Woods said Wednesday. “I shined it in the garage and there was a coyote at the other end of the garage, maybe 26 feet away, staring me down. It wasn’t backing down. It was standing up for his kill,” Woods said.

Woods said if he hadn’t seen the brown flash and gotten the flashlight, he’s afraid the coyote may have attacked him to defend his food, the dead dog.

Woods isn’t the only one who has spotted the wild animals recently in the Westbrook and Gorham area. A Westbrook School Department employee said she’s spotted two coyotes as she was walking to work along Stroudwater Street in the morning. Woods said another Gorham resident’s small dog had recently been killed by a coyote in the area.

“Coyotes do well in Westbrook, South Portland and Portland, the cities, because there is never a lack of cats, squirrels, mice, moles, snakes,” said Peter Herring, the district game warden who covers the Westbrook area. “It’s a free meal, and the fox population is much the same. These animals are booming in the city.”

Herring said he tries to inform people with small outdoor animals that there is an inherent risk in keeping those animals outside because Maine has a lot of wildlife and the coyote population is booming.

“Coyotes are not dingos, they’re not going to take your baby and run off. In Maine you’re going to see wildlife. I tell people to pick up a camera and enjoy the wildlife,” Herring said.

Herring said part of the reason for the uptick in the coyote population is that the two most successful ways of controlling the population are by snaring or trapping the animals. He said both programs were met with scrutiny from the public so they did away with the programs.

“A lot of sportsmen are not out there trapping. We’re not taking population and managing it the way we should be, and it’s no fault from our agency. We’re trying to promote trapping and dealing with public outcry. If you do away with that, the populations skyrocket and it becomes a nuisance animal, and at this point they are,” Herring said.

David Sparks, owner of Sparks’ Ark Nuisance Wildlife Damage Control, said there have been coyotes in the area for years after moving in to Maine many years ago.

“I live on the Windham/Westbrook line and heard them [coyotes] out for the last 40 years,” Sparks said.

Paul Dubay, the animal control officer with the Gorham Police Department, said people should not leave food out for the wild animals and not panic if they see a coyote.

“They are wild animals and we co-exist with them. The best thing is for people to just be aware. We’re living in their back yard,” Dubay said.