- Depending on how big the neighborhood is, you might need lots of cameras to get coverage. Drones may not be practical since someone would need to fly them, and to recharge them after a few hours of flight. (If a drone crashed and harmed someone or something, who would be liable? Would the noise of the drones frighten the coyotes, who would move away from the drone and not be detected?) Fixed cameras would be expensive, since they'd need to be mounted securely and have a way of communicating with a monitoring station.
- There are privacy issues. If you put your entire neighborhood under video surveillance to spot coyotes, how will people be assured that their privacy isn't being compromised? Who will have access to the video, under what circumstances, and for what period of time? Would someone be able to subponea the videos in a divorce case? In a police investigation?
- It seems that software that would be able to tell the difference between a coyote and a dog from a distance would have to be pretty sophisticated. (Is that a coyote pursuing a runner, or a runner running with her German Shepherd?) I don't know if you'll be able to find that capability without paying lots of money for a customized solution. The cops wouldn't be happy if they got an automated alert every time a dog passed by a camera.
It seems like a low-tech solution might be the best: people keeping an eye out for coyotes and calling the cops if they spot one.
