Irvine residents ‘not scared’ in wake of coyote attack on 3-year-old girl
Residents of an east Irvine neighborhood where a 3-year-old girl was attacked by a coyote last week say the incident doesn’t make them afraid of wildlife in the area.
“For me, no,” Alicia Sullivan, 25, said while exercising her dog in Silverado Park at the intersection of Equinox and Silverado, where the attack occurred May 22. “I don’t know if it’s just ignorance, but I’m not scared of them. I’ve never had an encounter with one. I don’t know that they’re necessarily aggressive unless around maybe small children or small dogs. They may see them as prey.”
Sullivan said she was aware of the incident only after signs were placed around the park to alert visitors that there had been a coyote attack.
“We knew they were around,” T.J. O’Donnell said while walking his dog near the neighborhood pool. “Every once in awhile you see them at dusk or at night. I’m not overly concerned, but you’re aware of them.”
O’Donnell was in his apartment near the park when the girl was pounced on by the coyote at about 6 p.m. while she and her mother and twin sister were walking the family dog. The child’s mother and neighbors quickly rescued the girl, who suffered a superficial bite wound on the back of her neck.
“I just heard a bunch of yelling,” O’Donnell said. “A woman came out of her apartment, I think with an umbrella, and was trying to swing it at the coyote before it ran away.”
Irvine police animal-control officers were dispatched to the scene and tried unsuccessfully to find the coyote. Authorities said they plan to euthanize the coyote if it is captured.
Officials had a hard time remembering the last time there was a call about a coyote attacking a person.
“It is extremely rare for coyotes to engage human beings,” said police spokeswoman Farrah Emami. “We get a lot of sightings, because all the open spaces here in Irvine are their habitat. But interaction with people is very rare.”
At Irvine’s Stonegate Elementary School, teachers are educated in wildlife confrontation as part of the Irvine Unified School District’s emergency-preparedness training. A district official could not recall whether there had ever been a coyote sighting at Stonegate.
The police animal-services unit offers advice on what to do if confronted by a coyote and how to prevent contact with the animals:
• Don’t turn and run. Rather, raise your arms to make yourself appear as large as possible, and make noise to scare the animal. The Orange County Humane Society also recommends using sticks, small rocks, tennis balls or water sprays.
• Keep cats and small dogs indoors.
• Keep small children under close adult supervision at all times.
• Don’t feed coyotes or other wild animals, and get rid of potential food and water sources for them.
• Enclose the bottom of porches and decks.
• Keep property well-lighted at night.
“We want to protect the animals and humans, and the best way to do that is to not let the neighborhood be hospitable to the animals,” Emami said. “Cover your trash cans. Don’t leave pet food outdoors. Don’t give coyotes a reason to come around.”
While playing catch with her poodle in the park, Sullivan said she had no worries about local wildlife, though maybe a little guilt. “I’m not concerned. Not yet,” she said. But “I feel like we’re kind of building all over their land and they don’t really have anywhere else to go.”
Coyotes have been an issue elsewhere in Orange County, notably in Seal Beach, where at least 60 attacks on pets were reported in 2014.
That led city officials to hire a pest-control company to trap coyotes and asphyxiate them in a mobile carbon dioxide chamber. However, a backlash against the practice influenced the city not to renew its contract with the company and end extermination as a solution to the problem.