This time it was a woman out walking her two dogs. But unlike the last such encounter (see related article below), this one happened in the middle of the day – you know, the time when we are supposed to be reasonably safe from the predators.
Connie Kuhn, of Salmon Drive, Rossmoor, went for a walk with her two dogs, Peaches and BJ, around 11:00 AM – just to be perfectly clear, that’s the 11:00 during the day.
”I didn’t think I would be encountering one in broad daylight,” Kuhn told OC180NEWS. “Thank God it was just one of them. I have two dogs, so I would have to protect both of them.”
Good point – the last time the coyotes were stalking a person out for a walk in Rossmoor, there were two of the predators hunting together against one human. Fortunately for Kuhn and her two dogs, this time the humans had the advantage. Kuhn’s coyote was being followed by two people in cars.
“I didn’t see it until I heard the honking. I looked up and then I saw it,” Kuhn told us. “I was walking my dogs like I always do. I was going down Foster Road by Copa de Oro. And I heard a honk, so I looked up and there was a coyote about 15 or 20 feet away from me. I screamed ‘GET OUT OF HERE’ then it jumped over the fence at Foster Park. It was about 11:00 am – broad day light.”
In both of the recent close encounters between a person and a coyote in Rossmoor, the attack was disrupted because the predator lost the element of surprise. In the previous event, the jogger caught sight of the animal as it was closing in. In today’s event, the honking alerted Kuhn to the approaching danger.
The California Department of Fish and Game has long maintained they cannot do anything unless a human is actually attacked. That, of course brings up the definition of “attacked”. As far as Fish and Game is concerned, “attacked” means physical contact between the coyote and a person.
“This wouldn’t constitute any policy change at all,” said Andrew Hughan, Fish and Game spokesperson, after he listened to our description of this event. “It was a coyote on the street and I can understand she was afraid, but it didn’t attack anybody. It was there – We can’t speculate on what would have happened, It ran away.”
That much is true – the coyote did not actually come into physical contact with Connie Kuhn. Further, Hughan is also right in saying imagining what might have happened requires speculation.
“She was walking North on Foster with her back to the coyote, so if I hadn’t honked my horn and she turned around to see it coming, who knows what it would have done,” Connie Giddens told OC180NEWS. “She [Connie Kuhn] was very shook up when she saw this coyote running at her and her dogs.”
In both of these recent coyote/human close encounters, the animals didn’t break off their pursuit until the adult humans turned and confronted the approaching coyotes.
“What is going to happen when a school child walking home in the middle of the afternoon, or walking to school, is approached by one or two coyotes?” Rebecca Lara of the Rossmoor Predator Management Team said to OC180NEWS. “What will our government officials say then? They will say ‘what a shame, I wish something could have been done’.”
Lara, through the Rossmoor Predator Management Team, a community organization, has been creating a fuss by insisting governmental officials do something about the threat to people and pets posed by the coyotes. The situation in Rossmoor is very different from the neighboring incorporated cities where the city managers can simply pick up the phone and call in a trapper. Since Rossmoor has no such city government upon which to call, government accountability is – shall we say – a bit unspecific.
“Caltrans is removing the vegetation behind Martha Ann and that vegetation not only is the home of the coyotes, but also provides rodents for a meal,” Lara said. “Now, the coyotes are searching for food within the community.”
Lara has sent so much information to government officials and challenged them so often, she now is on a first name basis with many of them. In fact, the California Department of Fish and Game, the only agency to come within a country mile of accepting some coyote responsibility, in several conversations with OC180NEWS referred to “the Laras” as a means to notify the community about the coyote danger.
“I told Caltrans, I told OCTA, this would occur,” Lara said. “And now, in the middle of the afternoon, in less than a month, we have had two women stalked by coyotes. We have requested trapping and Caltrans refused.”
Note, only today’s encounter was during the afternoon. The other one was at 5:30 am. But, this makes today’s event even more concerning because mid-day activity is not considered normal coyote behavior.
“First thing in the morning, last thing at night is when they are up and about,” said Hughan.
California Department of Fish and Game, and apparently also Caltrans, do not believe there is any problem associated with the brush clearing.
“The Caltrans project doesn’t seem to be having any affect on stirring them up or not stirring them up,” Fish and Game’s Hughan told OC180NEWS. “I’ve talked to Caltrans a couple of times and they are saying ‘we haven’t seen any’. They went out and did the surveying and then they’ve been clearing brush for at least a couple of weeks, and there hasn’t been anything until this morning.”
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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