State Wildlife Officials Investigate Links Between Coyote Attacks

LAFAYETTE, CA – The fourth coyote attack in the Bay Area in recent months has state wildlife investigate wondering if the same coyote could be responsible for the incidents, including one involving an employee of a Lafayette grocery store earlier this week.

At least two of the four attacks that have occurred since April do involve the same coyote, investigators said this week. But after a Diablo Foods worker was bitten Tuesday, state officials are testing to see whether that attack can be tied to the same animal as previous incidents involving attacks on humans.

“It’s certainly within the realm of possibility,” Fish and Wildlife Capt. Patrick Foy told reporters this week. “We’re going to do our best to find out.”

The Diablo Foods employee was bitten in the leg by the coyote while the worker was taking a break behind the store, Foy said. According to reports, state officials are taking swabs of the bite wound along with samples of the worker’s pants to a lab in Sacramento to compare it to bites involving coyotes in previous attacks.

Foy told reporters that the store worker and a fellow employee were able to scare the coyote away following the attack. The attack this week comes less than two weeks after a man was bitten in the leg while he was jogging on a high school track in Moraga where Fish and Wildlife employees have killed four coyotes since the Dec. 4 attack, reports said.

“This is definitely in the category of an unusual situation, Foy said this week, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Fish and Wildlife officials have said that the coyote who bit the man walking at the high scho0l is the same coyote that bit a 4-year-old boy at Moraga Commons Park over the summer.

Fish and Wildlife officials said that eight coyote attacks have been reported around California this year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.