As Pet Death Tolls Mount, Culver City Grapples With Urban Coyotes

CULVER CITY, CA – It took a group of neighbors to help identify the remains of Geli Harris’ cat Bella after a coyote ate her. Harris studied a photo of pet for more than 15 minutes, she said, attempting to match her markings with photos her neighbor took of the unidentified cat’s remains.

Bella, a 10-year-old cat, was “big and fluffy,” and the remains looked nothing like that, Harris said. They were matted and bloodied. But once Harris made the connection, she was speechless.

“I couldn’t stand up,” Harris said. “It took my breath away.”

Harris, who lives on Madison Street, said coyotes preying upon pets is becoming the norm in Culver City. Since March, Harris and her neighbors have documented more than 40 pet deaths by coyote through using social media sites like Next Door and Facebook, along with personal accounts and direct knowledge.

“I’ve been walking these streets for 34 years and every house had a cat, sitting outside on the lawn,” Harris said. “But now it’s a ghost town from the cat perspective. The two left on our street, we lock them into the house every night. There are no outdoor cats.”

Coyote attacks on humans and pets are on the rise in Southern California, according to a study called “Coyote Attacks: An Increasing Suburban Problem.” But the solution is far from simple, and many disagree on how to handle the small, wolf-like mammals – to kill, relocate, or coexist?

Culver City has a community-wide program called the Coyote Management Plan meant to educate and help form habits that ward coyotes from neighborhoods. When City officials saw an increase in coyote encounters in 2015, they began researching surrounding communities, existing Coyote Management Plans, and coyote ecology as well as analyzing the Coyote Guidelines from the Humane Society of the United States to “better understand and to create an appropriate plan for the City,” the plan said.

So far, the program “is as effective as it can be,” according to Captain Osama Agaiby, Operations Bureau Commander for Culver City police. However, the problem is cyclical. When the Culver Crest neighborhood saw an increased coyote presence about three years ago, they implemented the program in that area. Eventually, coyotes didn’t feel welcome there, so they moved to other areas where food is easy to get, he said. Although the meetings and education were available to the entire city, a majority of those in attendance were residents who lived in the affected area, he said.

“It needs to be a regional approach. If it’s not a regional approach we’re just pushing them from one area to the next,” Officer Agaiby said. “Unfortunately, if it doesn’t affect people, they don’t pay attention until it’s in their backyard.”

Harris, however, said that it’s not that people don’t care, it’s that they don’t know about the “obscure” Coyote Management Plan. In her opinion, the two main things that need to be done are educating the public and removing the coyotes from Culver City, she said.

The Coyote Management Plan includes three main strategies: public education to teach how to coexist with coyotes, enforcement of laws and regulations prohibiting feeding wildlife and ensuring public safety by implementing appropriate tiered responses to coyote and human interactions. But many residents, including Harris, believe the only solution is to get rid of them for good.

“It’s a simplistic way to look at it – they’re cat murders, let’s kill them,” Officer Agaiby said. “But there are a lot more factors that go into food sources for coyotes – food left in trash cans, pet food and water left out overnight.”

A copy of Culver City's Coyote Management Plan:

Coyotes can lose their fear of humans in suburban areas as a result of relying on ample food resources like “increased numbers of rabbits and rodents, household refuse, pet food, available water from ponds and landscape irrigation runoff, and even intentional feeding of coyotes by residents,” according to the study “Coyote Attacks: An Increasing Suburban Problem.”

One facet of the plan focuses on removing coyote attractants in urban areas, because coyotes lose their fear of humans in urban areas when food is readily available, even changing their natural behaviors to adapt. Coyote attractants include pet food and water left outside, unsecured compost or trash, fallen fruit in yards, and unattended pets, according to the plan. Another technique it includes is “hazing,” also known as “fear conditioning,” which helps to change coyote behavior by making them fearful of humans, the plan said.

Trapping and removing coyotes are not an option, because, according to the plan, it’s not economically or ecologically efficient to attempt to remove all coyotes from the urban ecosystem – in fact, attempts to remove the mammals over the last century have been inefficient. Although “some people think we can just trap our way out of it,” that’s not the case, Captain Agaiby said.

“The reality is, there are families of coyotes up in hills, around the creek and around the entire SoCal region,” he said. “If we take away the two culprit coyotes, they’ll repopulate and they’ll be back again.”

The Culver City Police Department is hosting a community forum to discuss coyote concerns and increase awareness of the Coyote Management Plan. All Culver City residents are invited to attend on Tuesday, August 28 at 6:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers located at 9770 Culver Blvd. For questions regarding the forum, please contact Lieutenant Dunlap at (310) 253-6258.

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