Making a Federal Case of Hunt Was Premature : Wildlife: San Clemente’s announcement of USDA team’s arrival to help rid the city of its coyote problem jumped the gun. A private company is hired to do the job instead.

Forget the City Hall press conference Thursday morning heralding the upcoming arrival of federal wildlife experts to help rid the city of its coyote problem.

No federal help is coming after all. A private company will do the job instead.

San Clemente Fire Chief Jim W. Knight said late Thursday that his morning announcement was premature. Because later Thursday, he hired Chino-based Animal Pest Management Services to send a team to San Clemente to hunt and kill what experts believe is one or two aggressive coyotes in the city’s Forster Canyon area.

“That’s what is going to happen,” Knight said. “We are scheduled to meet with their representative Rex Baker at 8 a.m. today. The (U.S.) Department of Agriculture recommended them, and that’s good enough for me.”

Throughout May, the city has been plagued with coyote problems in the Forster Canyon community in the north end of the city. Six cats and two dogs have been killed, but the concerns reached a peak on May 16 when a coyote sneaked into a back yard in broad daylight and nipped a 5-year-old girl.

After an unsuccessful hunt for the coyote, the city turned to the federal government for help. But Ronald Thompson, state director of the USDA animal damage control program in Sacramento, said federal policy prohibits competition for a contract with a private firm.

“We can’t compete with private industry,” Thompson said. “We found out today a private pest control agency had already bid on the thing. That puts us out of the picture.”

Thompson said the new agreement with a private company would probably work out better after all because his agency has no working agreement with Orange County as it does with other California counties. In counties such as San Diego and Santa Barbara, local teams of USDA wildlife experts are contracted to be ready to step in when problems with wild animals occur, Thompson said.

Knight said the cost of a contract with the private company could be “equal or less than” the $300 a day the federal government was going to charge the city.

Both Knight and Thompson called the city’s approach only a “Band-Aid solution” for coyote problems, which will continue to plague the city as it grows into the backcountry. The county needs to set up a contract with the USDA, which could then have its local team on site without any delays, they agreed.

“We’ve been telling Orange County that for years,” Thompson said.