Panel Rejects Coyote Leg Trap Ban : Wildlife: Activist has pushed for prohibition. But an animal control officer puts his hand in one of the devices to demonstrate its safety.

For 22 years, Lila Brooks has helped guide Southern California cities and counties through the emotionally charged debate over how to make devices that trap and control wildlife more humane.

As director of the Hollywood-based California Wildlife Defenders, she has been the impetus for several laws governing the traps, including a ban on their use in unincorporated Los Angeles County.

But on Monday, a Los Angeles City Council committee rejected her proposal to ban steel leg-hold traps used to catch more than 100 coyotes a year in city parks and foothill back yards.

“Wild animals tear themselves to pieces trying to get out of these traps,” Brooks said, dropping one of them on a lectern as she testified before the Public Safety Committee. “And these traps are catching more domestic animals than coyotes.”

Also testifying in support of the proposal was Alan Kishbaugh, vice president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., who said that “cage traps are the only way to humanely trap wild animals.”

Councilmen Marvin Braude and Ernani Bernardi sided instead with city Animal Regulation Department officials, who testified that the leg-hold devices used by the city for 20 years are padded with rubber and do not threaten pets, children or the estimated 5,000 coyotes that roam the city.

To prove the point, animal control officer Louis Dedeaux put his hand into one of the spring-loaded traps, which snapped shut with a bang. Then he smiled at the committee members with the trap clasped tightly to his fingers.

The demonstration, along with the fact that state officials a year ago outlawed the use of traps with steel teeth, persuaded Braude and Bernardi to vote to recommend that the City Council take no action on the matter.

“Coyotes are not easily dealt with and can be . . . vicious,” Bernardi said. “I’m ready to receive and file what we have here and ask that the department continue” using the traps.

Brooks said later, holding back tears: “I am absolutely devastated, I’ve been fighting this for more than a year. But I’m going to keep on fighting because animal cruelty is a monster that has to be stopped.”

In an interview, Gary Olsen, district supervisor for the Department of Animal Regulation in the San Fernando Valley, said, “Lila Brooks has taken on a fight for the coyote, and the coyote couldn’t have a better representative.

“The problem is, pets are carried away and eaten by coyotes every single day in Los Angeles,” Olsen said. “So, we target (trouble-making) coyotes, and to do that, we use soft-catch traps, which are humane.”