MB News: So are the "king" and "queen" coyotes having babies?

Anderson: Coyotes have a distinct social structure. If there are multiple females in the pack, the queen is only one who mates with the king. The others become what we call "socially sterile." That's why we care about who the queen is; we care about which one is breeding. If the queen feels safe and is getting a lot of food, she’s going to feel comfortable having a bigger brood.

(Fun fact: Coyotes are found in every state except Hawaii.)

Similarly, you might have multiple males in the pack, but the king is the only one in the pack who will breed with queen. If he doesn’t feel safe, he is not going to pursue a bigger litter.

Their current pup was born in spring 2022. But this past winter, Manhattan Beach did a great job of keeping food scarce and eliminating outdoor sources of food. So the good news is that our king and queen chose not to have any babies in the springtime. 

They were probably thinking, "We don’t have our usual safety and security in place - we better not expand the pack right now." 

Food seems to be one of their biggest motivators. With that relative lack of food, we’ve been able to keep them from reproducing. Now, as we head into winter again, we want to keep that trend going.

MBNews: What are you doing to keep the coyotes away from areas where humans like to hang out? 

Anderson: Going back to the food sources, we've done a lot of outreach with residents to ask them to put their trash away securely and not to leave food out or other items that may attract a coyotes' interest. 

We also have a good relationship with store managers and business owners. We work with them to make sure we don't have sites with exposed trash or open dumpsters.

One example of how the city has reduced available food and deterred coyotes from getting comfortable is from Pennekamp Elementary school last year when it was under construction, before they did the remodel. The animal control team found a "lay down" area where the king would rest in a old garden that had grown over. There was a lot of construction at the school at that time, and the old garden had wild kale, onions, and tomatoes in a very unprotected area. I found our king lying down there and I was like, "No, no, no, sir." We hazed him out of there; then we talked to the superintendent of the construction site and asked him to clear garbage out of there. During that summer I went there often and did campus safety checks and hazed him if we saw him because when school started again we didn't want him to be comfortable.

Now the new Pennekamp garden has a high fence, and the staff has been educated in keeping foliage clear. This means that he has registered: "Dang; I lost one of my comfort areas."  That's the kind of thing we do to discourage them from settling in "human" areas. And if we continue to take away those safety zones, the king and queen will not want to have more pups.

(Coyotes are opportunistic omnivores; if they find pizza, they're going to eat it.)

Another spot is Begg Field or the soccer fields. People have a half-finished pizza and they just throw it in the trash can. That's easily accessible food; and we definitely don't want to encourage the coyotes to come to places where families and kids are around.

As I'm tracking their behavior, I can often find our coyotes' poop. That helps me see that they're really enjoying peaches, or dates, or whatever right now. Then when people report coyote activity and we go to their street, we can look up and see lots of date trees and we know that's what he's been coming for. That guides us in our investigations - what is he attracted to, and where he finds comfort. It helps us gauge and build a more healthy dynamic of, "This is someone’s yard; this is not a good place for this coyote to be." And we can actively haze him from that street.

The bottom line is, we want to keep them wild and eating things that wild coyotes would eat. We don’t need to encourage their habitation by openly exposing them to easily accessible food sources, and that means put our garbage and compost in a fully closed bin.

MB News: Lots of people seem to be in favor of trapping and/or exterminating the coyotes. Do you think that will keep coyotes out of Manhattan Beach? 

Anderson: Sadly, what we’ve learned from other municipalities - and what the statistics show us nationally and even internationally - is that if a city continuously traps, it never seems to decrease the coyotes' numbers. The population tends to backfill with new coyotes that are looking for territory they can conquer. When cities go in and they trap, it’s proven to only increase numbers or draw transient coyotes to that void. 

In fact, all species have a fantastic positive impact on the urban environment and natural environment - if they’re doing their natural job. Coyotes would be happy to eat all of the rats in those construction sites. And sure, that's a natural prey for them; they should go ahead and do that. But you don’t want to encourage domestication. We want to keep them doing their natural, wild, beautiful job. Hazing them from the places we don't want them to be is the greatest kindness we can offer them because it will help them stay "wild."

MB News: What should a person do if they spot a coyote?

Anderson: The first thing I always hope people would ask is, "Is this typical coyote activity?" For example, if you see a coyote through your Ring camera walking down the street at 3:00 in the morning looking for rodents, that's normal coyote activity. But if a coyote is lying down or getting comfortable in your yard, especially if there's a pet there, it's unacceptable. It's unacceptable for us to start letting them share our space. In that case, my answer is haze it, haze it, haze it. The standard of hazing is to yell as loud as you can, and ideally wave your hands. Or snap a bag or make a loud noise.

If you're out there with a coyote and it's not running away, and you feel threatened, call 911. That's why we're here. We can come out and help. Even if the coyote is gone by that point, we're going to want to know all the details you can tell us. Treat it like a true crime episode. How big was it? Did it look healthy? Did it run away or did it limp away? It's especially interesting to us if something looks strange or "off." Females who gave birth will limp afterwards for six months. I want to know if it is injured or if it is a female who gave birth. I want all of that information.

So again, my initial answer is, haze it, haze it haze it. But then sometimes I get a call with someone saying something like, "I'm out here with a coyote. It’s chasing a rat around the golf course. I’m trying to save the rat." That's when I ask, is anyone in danger? No? In that case I need you to maintain a safe distance. And I don’t want you to haze it because I don’t want you to come between a coyote and its food. Chasing a rat is a natural, expected coyote activity. If you happen to see a coyote getting food by a natural means, by all means, let it do so. I'd rather see a coyote doing that than walking through a soccer field looking for pizza.

In fact, the only time a coyote may get aggressive is if it's protecting its baby, if you're in the way of its food, or if you're encroaching on its den. A coyote is not likely to want to attack a cat or a dog, but if there's a bowl of kibble outside and the coyote sees the cat or the dog eating the food, in its mind, they're competing with him for that food and he gets aggressive. 

Unfortunately, we have had quite a few cats fall victim to coyotes. However, in a good 65 to 70% of the time, when we examine the scene, we find that the cat has had impact damage. That means that the cat was either hit and killed by a car first, or severely injured by a car, and the coyote took advantage of that situation. The coyote will feed on its soft organs (belly) because that's where it knows the food is, and will typically leave behind the head and the hips that are too big for it to swallow. People might have the perception that coyotes are preying on a lot of cats, but in truth, sadly, we have a high percentage of vehicle deaths for cats - and coyotes have simply learned to take advantage of that situation. The main thing that people can do to prevent this is to stop leaving cat food outside, whether it's intended for domestic or feral cats. It creates a cycle of undesired cat/coyote interaction allowing coyotes to become accustomed to cat food, and introducing cats as competition for that food.

Bottom line: Don't leave food or trash out. And if you see a coyote around a place where you don’t want him to be, like in front of a school or in a front yard - haze it or report it. Or if possible, take pictures or video and send them to us through the Reach Manhattan Beach app.  (The video below is a sample of a snippet sent in by a resident, shared courtesy of MBPD.)

Any or all videos are welcome; they do not have to be in color. The more information we have, the more we can learn about their behavior. When in doubt, call us out.

Editor's note: If Officer Anderson's name sounds familiar, that's because she is known for having deployed with the 82nd Airborne as their Medevac pilot during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. She has since retired from the military.