We have lived in Belmont Heights-Long Beach at the same address for 45 years. Most of the residents on our block have also lived here for a long period of time. None of the neighbors I queried had ever seen a coyote outside a zoo until a couple of years ago.
About a month ago our next door neighbor was standing in his front yard at noon and watched two coyotes trotting through his yard, through our yard and around the corner. They seemed to be together and did not seem to be fazed by the man standing right there. This was at noon!
Then two weeks ago another neighbor was walking her dog by our house at 10 in the morning and observed a coyote come out between our house and the afore-mentioned next-door neighbor’s.
So much for the theory that says that the coyotes are active at dawn and dusk only.
I have been keeping a folder of news clippings and material from Animal Care services for the past year. The first thing to raise my ire was a suggestion that coyotes were here first and human habitat came later.
That may be true if we go back several hundred years. It is not true in Belmont Heights on the east side of Long Beach, and into Orange County.
We used to put our cats out for the night and left food out for them 24 hours a day.
Now we are advised to “keep our domestic animals INSIDE like responsible pet owners.” Then there is the recommendation that we keep our pets and small children on a short leash when we are out walking with them. This is coupled with the recommendation that all cats should be indoor pets only.
Yes, and we should keep our young children in the house all day or put them on a short leash when outside. I wonder how many people with small children and pets might begin to feel trapped in their own homes.
It is against the law to trap coyotes and to relocate them, let alone kill them, unless they are directly threatening you in your own backyard. Animal Control Services says that relocating coyotes will disrupt the ecosystem of the area, causing the population of skunks, possums, raccoons, etc. to increase dramatically. We have occasionally seen these small animals over the years, but not in dramatic numbers. In any event, which do you suppose your cat would prefer, a possum or a coyote?
Ted Stevens, manager of Animal Care Services, cites studies that say killing or relocating the animals does not solve the problem. I agree that relocating coyotes to another neighborhood only means that someone else has the problem. Killing them is against the law in most cases, unless they have actively tried to attack you. So why not trap them and use contraceptive darts on females? Catalina has used a contraceptive, porcine zona pellucid, to control the population of unwanted animals on the island.
Mr. Stevens points to another study that says the aggressive control of coyote populations leads to coyotes increasing their reproductive rate, breeding at an earlier age and having larger litters.
I have some difficulty believing the coyotes organize themselves with such sophistication, but let’s practice birth control for them for the near future … until the freeway construction is finished and they can move back to their non-urbanized habitat.
Finally, some of the recommendations for protecting ourselves from aggressive coyotes seem quite burdensome. Do I really have to yell and wave my arms while at the same time APPROACH two coyotes that are walking across my front lawn? Must I carry with me rocks, sticks and pepper spray? I don’t want to forget the frozen orange juice containers with coins inside that I can rattle to annoy the coyote? How about a water pistol? Someone has suggested wasp spray. I’ll have to get a wagon to haul all my protective gear around.
What if there were pit bulls running around in packs, killing cats and small dogs? Would we be able to trap them?
Pat Thompson is a longtime resident of Belmont Heights in Long Beach and a frequent visitor to Seal Beach.
