Newport crowd gets noisy about coyotes: ‘We want to kill them now’

Many of the more than 80 people at Wednesday night’s Speak Up Newport meeting at the Civic Center were dissatisfied when they heard a plan to deal with aggressive coyotes in Newport Beach would include a color-coded alert system and emphasize education.

Residents who have lost pets to coyotes said they are tired of living in fear of the aggressive animals.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Corona del Mar resident Geoff Wiegman said after listening to a city animal-control officer present an overview of the pilot program. “If you had a pack of wild dogs in town, you’d do something about it. If you had a rabid pit bull running around, you’d do something. The people here want to see action. Track them, shoot them. If I see one on the road, I’m going to run it over. If it comes in my yard, I will shoot it. You can throw me in jail.”

This summer, residents began to demand solutions to what they said is a growing coyote problem, with the animals attacking and killing pets and even jumping over fences as high as 6 feet. In July, more than 100 people gathered for a memorial for a dog that was killed in a coyote attack in front of its owner on Poinsettia Avenue.

In September, some residents attended a City Council meeting, asking for a better solution to dealing with coyotes. The Police Department, which created a coyote information web page in July, urged residents to report coyote sightings and attacks so it could gather data and warn the public.

The pilot program, which will need City Council approval before it is implemented, focuses on educating the public to help drive coyotes away from populated areas, said animal-control officer Nick Ott. Residents need to reduce food sources for coyotes, he said, including keeping pets and pet food indoors, removing fruit that has fallen from trees and keeping garbage cans closed tightly. Residents also need to “haze,” or scare, coyotes by yelling at them, blowing horns or whistles or throwing rocks or other items in coyotes’ direction.

Residents’ coyote reports will be analyzed so volunteers can warn neighbors of problems in their area with door hangers or at homeowners meetings, Ott said. A four-tiered color-code system also would be implemented. Green would signify that a coyote was seen but was not acting aggressively; yellow would mean it was losing its fear; orange would mean that pets had been attacked; and red would mean a coyote came in contact with a human.

“This is the level where we’d start considering the option of lethal removal of the coyote,” Ott said.

State officials would be involved in an investigation before the animal was killed, he added.

More than two dozen representatives of city, county and state agencies attended Wednesday’s meeting, including Orange County animal-control employees and representatives of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. County Supervisor Michelle Steele attended, telling the audience that she had been asked at a previous Speak Up Newport meeting to do something, so she had her staff reach out to local and state officials to create a plan.

Lt. Kent Smirl of the Department of Fish and Wildlife told the audience that he understands that losing a pet is traumatic. But a few residents began to shout at him.

“Why not kill them all?” said Doug Muncy of Corona del Mar. “We have packs of three, four, five coming through. … We want to kill them now.”

He then left the meeting.

Ted Cooper, another audience member, joined him. “We want to stop the animals and kill the … things,” he said outside.

Smirl answered questions until 7 p.m., 30 minutes past when the meeting was scheduled to end. Coyotes won’t be spayed or neutered, he said, and trapping them in cages isn’t viable because the animals are too smart to go into cages.

He said a program called Wildlife Watch is being developed and, like a Neighborhood Watch for animals, would teach residents to report wildlife problems as well as tend their property to prevent attracting animals.

But still, audience members demanded that coyotes be trapped, removed and killed.

“If these were mosquitoes, you’d get rid of them,” said Nancy Whelan of Newport Beach, who said eight dogs had been killed by coyotes in the past year in her Belcourt neighborhood. “If we had rats, you wouldn’t say to pick up your trash. You’d get rid of them.”

Speak Up Newport board member Debra Allen said she was amazed at the turnout.

“I’ve been doing Speak Up Newport for 25 years,” she said. “I’ve never seen this kind of passion.”

But City Councilman Kevin Muldoon said he wasn’t at all surprised.

“No,” he said. “People are mad.”