Crowd Asks Villa Park to Control Bold Coyotes

Some residents say they are certain that growing numbers of coyotes are prowling the city’s vast green lawns and lush shrubbery, attacking pets sometimes in front of the owners’ eyes.

Some suspect it’s not the coyote population that’s increasing but rather their boldness, their willingness to trot along the street even as a startled morning jogger heads in the opposite direction.

On Tuesday night, the issue erupted at the City Council meeting, when a crowd that filled the room and spilled out onto the street argued vehemently about what to do. Many said they had lost their pets to coyotes. Ingeborg Lochrie told the council that she watched as her Yorkshire terrier was attacked and killed.

“A coyote came over the wall, and I’m devastated, and I’m not getting over it very easily,” she said before leaving the microphone in tears.

The furor in the town began recently with the savaging of a small cat named Scooter, whose stunned and angry owner responded by blanketing the city with an open letter headlined, “Warning! Danger lurks in Villa Park.”

“I just felt compelled to warn everybody,” said Scooter’s owner, Rosilee Gamboa, a 14-year resident who found the partial remains of her beloved beige and white cat in her yard on Aug. 19. “I never dreamed there were predator animals walking outside our block-wall fence.”

As the letters went out, the calls poured in. Fully 95% of the callers--more than 100, Gamboa says--reported that they too had lost pets to coyotes, she said.

The coyote issue has plagued many cities in California, as fast-growing suburbia overtakes the wilderness. But it is taking on special poignancy in Villa Park, which prides itself as “semi-rural.”

*

The city, recently ranked the wealthiest in Orange County by Worth magazine, features gracious Spanish-style and antebellum homes on large lots with ample landscaping. Only about 6,000 residents live on 2.1 square miles in Orange County’s smallest city, which may be especially attractive to coyotes, some residents say.

The problem brought out more residents than the City Council has seen at any meeting in two years, including the difficult meetings following Orange County’s bankruptcy. While residents demanded that the council do something, possibly including coyote trapping or eradication, animal rights advocates called for peaceful coexistence with coyotes--and were shouted down.

“We’ve got to start putting bureaucratic feet to the fire,” said Art Romandy, who lives in neighboring Orange. “This thing is not going to be solved by listening to animal rights nut cases.”

When Curtis Hannum of West Los Angeles, an animal rights advocate, said, “I think we have to share the world with God’s other creatures,” another member of the audience yelled, “How many coyotes do you want to take back to West L.A.?”

Jane Garrison, vice president of Orange County People for Animals, said, “I sympathize with the pet owners, but eradication is not a means of controlling coyotes.” She recommended education programs aimed at keeping small pets indoors and limiting outdoor food supplies.

Judy Maitlen, the county’s director of animal control, said that agency does not trap coyotes. If the council goes that route, she said, “your only option is to get a private trapper.”

Ultimately, the council decided to continue the meeting to Oct. 22, when the city staff will report on some of the residents’ suggestions.

*

Despite the uproar, Maitlen said she has seen no recent surge in the coyote population in Villa Park or elsewhere in Orange County.

In fact, coyotes are found throughout the county, many of them the descendants of other coyotes who also lived in urban areas, animal control officials said.

“These are truly urban coyotes,” Maitlen said. “They’re still wild animals, but they don’t have fear of normal human activity. The sounds of man do not frighten them.”

While Villa Park’s landscaping makes for good coyote shelter, Maitlen said, coyotes have been sighted in far more congested cities in the county. “These animals are all over California.”

And their diet is not restricted to house cats.

“They’re also eating rabbits. They’re also eating mice, rats, carrion,” Maitlen said, “and no one objects to them eating those types of things.” In fact, studies have shown that in areas where coyotes have been eliminated, the rodent population has increased, she said.

Orange County Animal Control advises pet owners to keep cats and dogs indoors or closely monitored by an adult and to feed them indoors.

But pets need more freedom, Gamboa said.

“Our little pets deserve to feel the grass under their feet. . . . “ she said. “The idea of keeping them inside just isn’t fair.”

But City Councilman Bob Patchin, a 30-year Villa Park resident, questioned just what government can really do to ward off coyotes.

“This is on the edge of wilderness,” Patchin said, “and you have to understand that and live with it.”