Coyotes roaming Seal Beach streets will soon be trapped and euthanized after the Seal Beach City Council approved a proposal aimed at protecting resident’s pets.
All across the Orange County city, residents and their animals have had run-ins with the undomesticated animal.
“The problem is the coyotes are habituated,” said Mayor Ellery Deaton. “They’re wild dogs, they’ve been trained and they’ve been trained to come in and look for food and water.”
Deaton said she planned to vote in favor of a list of recommendations, which includes short-term solutions such as trapping coyotes, possibly fining anyone feeding the animals and improving the city’s fences and other infrastructure, as well as cleaning up overgrown areas where coyotes are likel
The city voted 4-0 to approve the proposal.
The city would also look into the option of sterilization under the proposal.
However, some residents thought the actions in the proposal would only make matters worse.
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“You simply cannot remove coyotes from this eco-system without then being overrun by rats and rabbits and all that,” said Tim Revell, a biologist living in Seal Beach. “You create an evolutionary pressure on those that are left, that are smarter than that. They’ll survive, reproduce and it becomes more and more of a problem.”
Revell said the city should develop technology for pet collars that repel coyotes, and study the animals and their habits in the area before trapping and killing.
“Have them tagged and radio collared,” Revell said. “And then that way we would know which ones are the specific problems.”
