Culver City City Council approves coyote management study.
By Sam Catanzaro
Culver City will be spending $210,000 to study and manage Coyotes after a City Council meeting May 13.
Over the past few years Culver City, among other cities and communities on the Westside, have begun to experience an increase in the number of coyote encounters. These encounters included numerous attacks on pets by coyotes that were off leash and in residential back yards alongside an upsurge in sightings in areas populated by people.
Last August, in one month alone, 40 pets were killed in Culver City as a result of coyote attacks.
Coyotes have been spotted all over the city, but areas like Carlson Park, Culver Crest and Blair Hills are among the hotspots for wandering coyotes.
At the meeting Monday night, Culver City leaders approved a three-year partnership with Loyola Marymount University to study and manage coyotes in the area. This program includes installing night-vision cameras to track the animals’ migration patterns and implementing schoolwide and city-wide education programs aimed at protecting residents and pets.
In the first year, the study will focus on a review and assessment of existing data relating to coyote distribution and activity that has already been recovered by city wildlife management professionals. In addition, the first year of the program will include project activities directed towards human social factors affecting coyote management.
Year two of the study will focus on remote tracking of target study site coyotes alongside a domestic cat field study that will be implemented at and around coyote activity and trapping sites.
Year three of the proposed study will include the continuation and finalization of field game camera analysis, coyote radio telemetry/remote sensing data collection and analysis, plus completion of the domestic cat study.
Central to this program is something called “coyote hazing.”
“Coyote hazing simply means scaring a coyote away from you, your yard, or your neighborhood. Coyotes are members of the dog family–just as we train our dogs to adopt good behavior, we can reinforce a coyote’s natural instinct to avoid people without harming them. Hazing involves asserting yourself by reacting to the inappropriate presence of a coyote so that it is frightened or startled and leaves the area,” the City of Culver City said.
Hazing techniques include yelling and waving arms, responding aggressively, banging pots and pans using squirt guns or garden hoses, throwing tennis balls or rocks and utilizing whistles or air horns.
For more information, visit https://www.culvercity.org/Home/Components/Topic/Topic/740/925
