On Nov. 5 at noon, Natalie Ganji noticed a coyote roaming around the front yard of her neighbor’s house on the 200 block of South Bedford Drive. “The moms from my baby class were walking out and ran back inside my house,” Ganji told the Courier. “These coyotes, and there’s more than one, are out all throughout the day. I have four small children. They’re 5, 4 and 2 years old, 7 months old and a dog. I feel like, at this point, I’m a prisoner in my own home because I can’t go outside.”
Ganji first started seeing coyotes in her neighborhood about a month ago, and she wasn’t the only one. Over the past month, an uptick in coyote sightings in the flats has left many Beverly Hills residents fearful of leaving their homes. Primarily in the south of the city, the coyote sightings have prompted law enforcement to issue community warnings and best practices on how to stay safe, but the problem persists. Typically known to avoid people, residents have reported increasingly brazen coyotes that are unafraid to approach people and pets at any time of day or night. While the city of Beverly Hills does not remove or trap coyotes, officials work with the Los Angeles County Department of Agricultural Commissioner/Weights and Measures (ACWM) to manage wildlife encounters.
In a WhatsApp group chat designated for zone six residents, neighbors share real-time coyote sightings and updates, “warning everybody it’s on Peck, it’s on Camden, it’s on Bedford,” said Ganji. “We think there are two that are living on our street.” As part of the Just in Case BH emergency preparedness plan, the city was divided into nine geographic zones, with zone six extending west of Beverly Drive and south of Wilshire Boulevard to the city boundary.
“We call the police daily, and we’ve called animal control,” she said. “The coyote has not physically attacked anybody, but are we supposed to wait for it to attack us and then do something about it?”
Ganji grew up in Beverly Hills and has lived on South Bedford Drive for four years, but never have coyote sightings been a daily occurrence. “I feel like, as a neighborhood, we’re kind of at a standstill, and we don’t know what to do other than keep warning each other,” Ganji said. “We’re off of Olympic and Wilshire boulevards; there should not be coyotes here.”
According to several neighbors who contacted the Los Angeles County ACWM, an inspector from the Integrated Pest Management Division has been deployed to survey the area and then is expected to provide the city of Beverly Hills with an assessment. “I’m sure something is being done, but as a resident, I don’t know who’s really the right person to contact,” Ganji added.
Beverly Hills resident Mouna Forde told the Courier she was first approached by two coyotes about a month ago, around 4 a.m., while taking her Maltese dog outside. “I grabbed my dog in my hand, and one thing that surprised me was they weren’t scared,” Forde said. “They were coming towards me.”
Forde’s second encounter with a coyote was on Oct. 31, around 6:15 p.m., while she was walking her dog on South Roxbury Drive. “There were a lot of kids, noisy streets and lots of cars, and I turned my head, and it was behind me,” Forde said. “When I grabbed my dog from the floor, the coyote came towards me to attack my dog. I yelled and screamed, but it wasn’t scared.” According to Forde, the coyote cornered her in front of a parked car on her street, and she could not get by. After calling for help, her building manager came outside and chased the coyote away. “So now I have to walk my dog in the daytime with pepper spray, and it’s not enjoyable,” she told the Courier. “I don’t take her for walks anymore, and that’s so sad. I feel terrorized.”
Longtime resident Audrey Frantz was walking her small dog during the early evening of Oct. 24 when she realized a coyote had been trailing her. “Two ladies waiting at the Steak 48 valet said to me, ‘Pick up your dog, you’re being followed by a coyote,’” Frantz told the Courier. A few days later, she saw another coyote in the same neighborhood. “I was walking my dog next door to Steak 48 because there’s a little patch of grass there. I was with my neighbor, and she had her two little dogs. Then, all of a sudden, a big coyote came out of the bushes across the street on the west side of Roxbury and literally barged at us.” Frantz and her neighbor picked up their dogs and ran for safety inside the restaurant.
Frantz lives on South Roxbury Drive and is one of many who no longer walks in the neighborhood. “I have too much anxiety, and I get constant text messages and phone calls from neighbors with coyote sightings during the day and night.”
“The community needs help, and people need to be able to walk in the neighborhood and feel safe,” Frantz added. “People are not walking their dogs in the neighborhood right now, and everybody is on edge.”
City officials urge people to keep pets indoors or in secure enclosures, not to leave any pet food outside, secure trash, and close crawl spaces to mitigate the threat of coyotes. To report a sighting, residents are encouraged to contact LA Animal Control at 310-207-3266.
