Despite lethal actions in other cities, Long Beach coyotes are still dodging the bullet

We’re starting to worry about the coyote problem in Long Beach. The problem being we don’t seem to have enough of them. Certainly, we don’t have enough to get into the coyote killing game like some of our more death-happy neighbors, like Seal Beach, which pioneered, locally, the sport of killing coyotes, an endeavor spurred largely by the more leisurely and worldly residents of that town.

Lately, Huntington Beach has taken up coyote-killing, bagging nine of the animals in three months, mostly near the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, which coyotes have somehow invaded with their little Manifest Destiny hoohaw. And on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, five of them have been shot and killed, which is a gloriously old-school way of handling problems.

In Long Beach, the anti-coyote hysteria remains in place, though it has simmered down a bit, at least in the arena of social media, most notably with the absence from Facebook of the rabid Long Beach, Lakewood and Bellflower Coyote Watch, whose members have either gone underground or decided their involvement was taking away too much time from their daytime TV watching.

We’re a bit frustrated because, while we live in an area where residents howl loudest about coyotes (a couple of blocks from Los Coyotes Diagonal, a street name that’s as much a waing as it is a directional indicator), we have yet to see one in the 25 years we’ve lived there.

We’ve seen possums (boy, have we!), raccoons, woodpeckers, ospreys, wild geese, a guy dowsing for water, kids on pogo sticks and a sitting president of the United States in our neighborhood, but still no coyotes. This, in spite of avocados and Satsuma mandarins scattered on the ground and a brace of dogs who are constantly trying to draw attention to themselves.

We called Ted Stevens, manager of Long Beach Animal Care Services, to ask if his department has got caught up in the latest civic craze of killing coyotes, either by simply shooting them or the more common practice of trapping them and throwing them into a mobile gas chamber, which is considered the more humane method. We’d call it a toss-up. Both have their attractive points.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

Coyote incidents, ranging from mere sightings to attacks on animals and, though it hasn’t happened, humans, are gathered and posted on Animal Care’s website. It seems far from a problem, at least as far as reported incidents show. Cats, in particular, are favorite targets (ie., food) for coyotes.

In terms of what needs killing, according to the department’s Coyote Management Plan, if three investigated and confirmed dangerous incidents (ie., a coyote is involved in an incident where there is an attended domestic animal loss, where it enters a dwelling or yard in which people are present, or where it acts

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aggressively toward people) have occurred in the same general area within a timespan of two weeks, targeted lethal removal may be implemented. And lethal removal may be employed at the discretion of the Stevens in cases involving extreme instances of aggression towards humans.

Said Stevens, “We haven’t reached that threshhold.”

Contact Tim Grobaty at 562-714-2116, [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter.