LA Gone Wild

Last night I attended the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council meeting.  The evening featured Gregory Randall, the City of LA’s lone wildlife specialist . . . in a city of 465 square miles crammed with four  million people.  Because of the recent events in Griffith Park, where eight coyotes were shot in the aftermath of two (probably only one) people getting bitten (who had napped in the park), the church hall was full of very vocal residents.

  Mr. Randall has helped change the tone of his department’s approach toward wildlife.  Until this decade, coyotes and other wild animals were often trapped and re-released in areas such as national forests, which was a farce because 1) you are taking these animals out of the only habitat they’ve ever known and 2) another critter will just take its place.

  Now the focus is coexistence.  Rather than relocating animals who were in our neighborhoods long before we or our overleveraged homes were here, Randall passionately insisted to this audience that we must learn to live with them.  Some of his suggestions were just plain common sense:  don’t leave pet food out over night, don’t let your little pets out late at night or they could end up as food, pick your fruit and vegetables immediately if you’re gardening, and eliminate overgrown vegetation where such animals could hide.

  The biggest problem?  You guessed it:  people feeding animals.  Randall brought over displays of fools feeding these animals out of their cars, at picnic tables, in their backyard.  I don’t remember much about K-12 science, but for some reason, not feeding wild animals was a lesson that had stayed with me—obviously not with others, however.  In the end Randall blames and wild animal’s death on the people who feed them . . . and the city is trying to curb this by not only increasing the fine for feeding wildlife to $500, but to change the violation from an infraction to a misdemeanor.  

  The reality is, these animals are scared of us more than we are of them.  And in California’s history, there have been about four million reported dog bites.  Coyotes:  300 bites, and only one death to a human.

Some interesting, and sad, facts that Randall shared included:

  -          Yoplait® yogurt containers should be recycled, not put in the trash (and rinsed, I would add) . . . hundreds of skunks die each year because they are suffocated when they try trolling for leftovers in those cups.  By the way, skunks are annoying (our shih-tzu has been sprayed twice), but beneficial—they eat rodents and insects that otherwise would be eating your landscaping and garden.

-          In just about every case where a community eliminated or moved coyotes . . . the rodent population would increase at such an alarming rate that . . . coyotes would have to be brought in to control that population.

-          Feeding lettuce to deer, as what was done after the Griffith Park fire a couple years back, is the worst food for a deer: they have a false sense of feeling “full” and end up starving.

-          Since the 1960s, rabies has become a rare disease, even from wildlife:  bats are the biggest culprits, followed by skunks and foxes:  each animal only accounts for 2% of rabies infections in California.

-          The best way to get rid of a coyote?  Scare them, either by clapping or stomping, opening an umbrella, or in the most desperate case—someone like Randall would shoot them with a paintball gun .  .  . because in the end, it’s more humane to bruise a coyote than to kill one.  Scaring them is the best way to keep wildlife away!

-          Plastic bags are a huge detriment to wildlife:  turtles will eat them thinking they are jellyfish, and seals and sea lions are often killed by them as well.

  Finally, look for signs soon in Griffith Park in English, Spanish, and Korean explaining how feeding wildlife can set you back at least $500.

  Have any of you encountered LA’s wildlife (other than Britney Spears and the paparazzi!).  If so, what did you do?  How have you kept them out of your yard?