"Overwhelming."  

That's the word Mecklenburg County's Natural Resources Manager describes the response to a website asking for information about coyote sightings in the county.

"Coyotes can not only be in the creek corridors, but they can also travel in between the creeks and be in anyone's backyard," said Chris Matthews, who is working with a team from the Parks and Recreation department to use neighbors catalog the location of coyotes.

In the 10 days since the county started the online reporting, Matthews said they have received almost 80 reports from the public.

Coyotes became a concern after a series of attacks on pets in some neighborhoods, especially in south Charlotte.

"Yes I've been hearing from some concerned neighbors.  We had some attacks in our neighborhood," says Maria Smithson, vice president of the homeowners association in Cameron Wood, along Park Road.

It's one of the communities where sightings have been reported since the website went online.

People who log onto the website are asked to list where they saw the coyotes and when, and any other pertinent information.

Matthews will make a preliminary report of his findings to the Mecklenburg County Commission Tuesday night, and he is hoping they will eventually be able to say how many coyotes are in the county and where.

 "If we find that we have a concentration of coyotes in an area we may able to help the residents of that area learn a little bit about their behavior and how to minimize the danger of an interaction," he said.

To learn more about the coyotes in Mecklenburg County, click here. 

To file a sighting report, click here.