New Weapons to Battle Coyote ‘Infestation’

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 Coyotes in nearby wilderness parks. Photo by Allan Schoenherr

Coyotes in nearby wilderness parks. Photo by Allan Schoenherr

This week, animal control officers with water-filled paintball guns started blasting coyotes that are getting too close for some people’s comfort.

The idea is to teach the coyotes to be afraid of people so they’ll keep their distance, said Jim Beres, who supervises the city’s animal control services. “It won’t hurt them,” he said. “It will stun them and scare them. It won’t leave a wound.”

Close encounters of the urban kind with coyotes are becoming common and controversial across Orange County, and more of the canids are being sighted in Laguna Beach than in any other year, Beres said. “Some residents are calling it an infestation,” he said.

Besides using high-velocity water pistols, the city hired a trapper and started posting 10 movable coyote alert signs cautioning residents to safeguard their pets. The signs are moved by the number of complaints received in any given neighborhood, Beres said.

The water-ball approach is considered a humane hazing technique to keep coyotes leery of people, which they see as a bigger predator. “We’re trying not to trap them,” Beres said. The drought, food shortage in the wild, constant development that shrinks habitat, and easy city pickin’s are some of the variables changing country coyotes into city slickers, he said.

Coyote street signs are popping up all over town. Photo by Charlie Craig.
Coyote street signs are popping up all over town. Photo by Charlie Craig.

Jimmie Rizzo, a professional trapper with Animal Pest Management in Chino, has trapped three adult male coyotes in Bluebird Canyon since he was hired a month ago, Beres said. The animals were killed.

To allay more trappings, officers will take their paintball guns to Bluebird and other streets with frequent sightings, including the Woods Cove neighborhood, Lower Temple Hills and Weymouth Place in North Laguna, which is near an entrance to Laguna Wilderness Park. Oak, Brooks and Catalina streets are also on the list, Beres said.

This is the third generation of coyotes acclimating to the sounds, sights, smells and tastes of the city, and the first generation to be born, raised and trained by their mothers to live the urban lifestyle, he said.

And, like city people, said naturalist Joel Robinson, they’re up at all hours of the day and night.

“It’s like a candy store to them,” said Robinson, who has worked in wilderness management for several Orange County cities and guides wilderness meet-up hikes and educational activities. “The challenge to obtain food has been removed.”

In the city, not only are there plenty of pets to eat, there are rodents, bird seed, food waste in trash cans, open compost, pet food left out and standing water. “Coyotes are omnivores,” he said. “They’ll eat anything.”

It’s time, to be wily with the coyotes, said Beres, living with them rather than against them. “Don’t feed them. It just desensitizes them and teaches them that people are a source of food.”

The way to keep them away? Scare them, he said, by getting big. Run at them, wave your arms, scream, throw rocks, tennis balls or shoes, whatever is at hands, he said. But don’t run away. “That only triggers the animal’s hunter instincts,” he said. “Take aggressive action.”

“There’s no question they’re here,” said Thais Askenasy, who lives in lower Bluebird Canyon. Askenasy has 10 cats. And a 400-square-foot enclosed solarium for them to roam. At 3 p.m. on three days recently, she has seen a coyote in her yard.

Two weeks before the daily sightings, one of her cats, Weezer, was basking outside the solarium. Askenasy was inside. “Weezer flew off the roof like a flying squirrel,” she said. A coyote had scared it off the warm grass, up a tree and onto the roof. The cat came back the next day. “It must have been a young coyote in training,” she said. “My cats don’t go out anymore.”

On the positive side, coyotes are nature’s answer to animal control, keeping “pest populations,” such as rats, gophers and cockroaches, in check, said Robinson. “They’re actually benefiting us more than we know.”

Coyotes don’t particularly prefer people food, said Allan Schoenherr, naturalist and author of “Wild and Beautiful” about Orange County wilderness. “I don’t think you need to fear them,” said Schoenherr, adding that coyotes prefer native plants and berries. If you don’t give them a food source, he said, they’ll stay away.

Coyotes living in town forces people to change their behaviors, Beres said. “Leash your dog, keep your pets inside at night, protect your animals. Laguna is surrounded by open space and there’s open space in the city. That’s what makes Laguna special. Coyotes can pop up in town anywhere, anytime.”

 

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5 COMMENTS

  1. As a 33-year resident of Bluebird Canyon, I am astounded that somebody named Jimmie Rizzo has been hired to kill coyotes and has already killed three of them. The policy of the Laguna Police Animal Control Officers has always been to relocate particularly intrusive coyotes to other more remote areas. People should not forget that wilderness areas, like the Greenbelt bordering Bluebird Canyon, are home to large numbers of rats, and the coyotes serve as a useful deterrent to limit expansion of these rat populations. Killing off the coyotes is just going to produce a rat infestation and the diseases that they bring into homes.

  2. FYI; It is illegal to relocate coyotes in the state of California. No city relocates coyotes. Coyotes have little to no impact on the rat population. Cats go after rats, coyotes go after cats.

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