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.
