City’s Coyote Trapping Policy Faces Review

Susan Klenner awoke Sunday to find a “snowstorm” of white feathers and the savaged carcasses of her last eight pet chickens strewn about the back yard of her family’s Woodland Hills home--the gruesome result, she said, of a nocturnal visit by prowling coyotes.

The family called the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation for help. But they got the same answer they heard when two more of their chickens disappeared around Christmas: The city of Los Angeles is no longer in the coyote-trapping business.

Today, largely as a result of such complaints, the city Board of Animal Regulation is to begin reconsidering its 6-month-old policy against trapping.

But for Klenner, who spent Sunday morning picking up what remained of the birds she considered her pets, the city’s discussion is coming more than a little late.

“I went out there and it was carnage,” Klenner said. Had the city placed traps after the prior attacks, “this probably would not have happened,” she said.

For years, the city animal regulation department had routinely responded to residents’ coyote complaints by providing and even setting the traps. But that ended last June, when outgoing animal board members, at the urging of animal rights activists, halted the use of box traps.

Now, animal control officers simply offer advice on how to prevent attacks and tell residents to contact government agencies that still trap coyotes in certain areas.

The current panel--its members mostly appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan--is free to set its own policy. But department officials and animal board member Lynne Exe--who has publicly favored renewed trapping--have said they doubt the current five-member board will change the policy.

“If it continues like this, there’s going to be some severe damage to somebody,” said city animal regulation Lt. Richard Felosky, who heads the West Valley Animal Care and Control Center in Chatsworth.

Wildlife activists have argued the city should not be in the business of managing wild animals. They already argued successfully to ban leg-hold traps as cruel to coyotes, and say the box traps--although supposedly more humane than those used in the past--can cause severe pain to the animals.

In addition, one animal board member recently estimated it would cost the city about $100,000 a year to resume trapping.

However, Klenner said she and others in her neighborhood who have lost animals to suspected coyote attacks want the city to reinstate trapping. In the 23 years that she and her family have lived in their Woodland Hills house, Klenner said, they always kept animals but never had a coyote problem until last year.

“It’s not legitimate to say we’ve moved into coyote habitat,” she said.

Animal control officials said the halt to trapping, the abundance of food and small animals in neighborhoods and the recent brush fires that consumed wild areas have all combined to drive coyotes into city streets and spurred residents’ complaints. Activists have long contended that coyotes are being squeezed out of their habitat and into conflict with humans because of development.

Council member Laura Chick said she has been getting constituent complaints. But she expressed concern about the cost of resuming trapping, adding, “I’m not convinced yet that trapping is going to control the problem effectively.”

“There’s a lot of stuff clouding this issue, emotions and fear,” Chick said. And she said she believes “one of the most effective ways” to avoid attacks is to take preventive measures such as not leaving food out and fencing in small domestic animals at night.

To get to her eight white chickens--bantam birds with silky, hair-like feathers--Klenner said a coyote had to scramble over two fences, including a five-foot-high chain-link surrounding the corral where the birds roosted.

The family heard no disturbance overnight. But when she went outside Sunday morning, Klenner said, “From a distance, I saw a patch of what sort of resembled snow on the ground. And I knew instantly I had a lot of dead chickens.”

Although other predators also are known to kill chickens, Klenner said she is convinced the attackers were coyotes, even though she found no firm proof.

If she replaces the birds, Klenner has no intention of keeping them in cages at night to ensure their safety. “That’s not the way I choose to keep birds,” she said.