Mailbag: Protecting pets from coyotes starts with pet owners

Pets and predators don’t mix. That is usually not a problem, since most predators avoid people like the plague, so our proximity protects pets from predation.

But when wild animals lose their fear of people, pets lose that protection. At that point, we must be more proactive in ensuring our pets’ safety by keeping them inside the house or a securely fenced yard while at home, and on a leash when out walking.

Such precautions are the price we pay for living with nature. If those measures are ineffective and a rogue coyote still perceives our pets as prey and attacks them anyway, then that dangerously aggressive animal needs to be targeted for trapping. That is the price nature pays for living with us. Anyone who has lost a pet under those circumstances has a right to expect such appropriate action will be taken.

In contrast, anyone who allows their pet to roam the neighborhood freely and unattended, especially at night, has no right to expect any action against predators since they are a primary cause of the problem. Instead of protecting their pets, those people make them part of the food chain, and it’s not the top part.

Those pets face even more peril if they wander onto the road. Cars kill far more pets than coyotes ever have. This year I have seen nearly a dozen cats that were run over on the street and the remains of two others that had been partially eaten by a coyote. It is not a pretty sight. All of those needless deaths could have been prevented if the cats were kept indoors.

Negligent owners put their pets in harm’s way every day, and they alone bear responsibility for the animal’s ultimate fate.

Chris Borg
Huntington Beach