L.A. Council Committee Endorses Ban on Feeding Coyotes, Other Wildlife

Seeking to discourage coyotes from being lured into residential areas, a Los Angeles City Council committee Wednesday approved an ordinance imposing a fine of up to $250 for feeding wild animals.

The anti-feeding measure was sparked after hundreds of lunch bags filled with dog food were left along hillside roads in Sherman Oaks over a period of weeks in April, apparently to feed coyotes. It was never determined who was leaving the bags.

The ordinance recommended by the Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee would impose fines of $50 for the first violation, $100 for the second and $250 for each subsequent violation. It must be approved by the full council and Mayor Tom Bradley.

“This will help send the coyotes back into the hills where they belong,” said Lila Brooks, director of California Wildlife Defenders, a Hollywood-based animal activist group, and a leading advocate of the ordinance.

The feeding of wild animals has been an ongoing problem in the Los Angeles area.

Brooks, who has led successful one-woman crusades for passage of similar feeding bans in Burbank and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, told the committee that coyotes are lured into neighborhoods by handouts from “well-meaning but misguided” animal lovers.

She said the ordinance would save the animals. Currently, she said, coyotes that receive handouts eventually lose their fear of humans and begin snapping up household pets and rummaging through garbage. As a result, they often have to be shot by animal control officers.

Until now, the city has relied on educating the public about the dangers of luring coyotes into urban areas, said Robert Rush, general manager of the city’s Department of Animal Regulation. He said the ordinance is needed because more homes are being built in canyons and other formerly wild areas, thrusting humans into coyote habitats.

Although coyotes rarely attack humans, they have bitten children in the Los Angeles area in recent years.

In a highly publicized incident in 1981, a 3-year-old girl was attacked and killed by a coyote in Glendale. Last summer, Santa Monica Mountains parkland in Agoura was temporarily closed after a horseback rider reported that he had been bitten and scratched on the arm and his horse nipped on the legs by three coyotes.

The ordinance would also ban the feeding of raccoons, foxes, skunks and opossums.