Hot take that'll probably get me flamed: the constant "give them spac…

Jessica Wright

Jul 1, 2026, 11:23 PM

Joon, I felt this reading it. The stopping-and-looking part is exactly what scares me — that's not a shy animal, that's one that's learned we're harmless. I clapped at one on my morning walk near Antonio and got the same blank stare. For an actual number: OC Animal Care (714-935-6848) and your city's animal services. Report every daylight sighting and the terrier — documented incidents are what finally get a professional trapper out. A flyer won't do it.

Amit Roberts

Jul 1, 2026, 11:33 PM

Thank you Joon. FINALLY someone says it. The one on the Jeffrey loop is the same one I've clocked at maybe 15 feet just standing there watching. That is NOT normal and everyone knows it but half this forum would rather lecture you about ancestral land than admit it.

Bao Farahani

Jul 1, 2026, 11:51 PM

Or... it's not moving because you keep walking the same path at the same time every morning and it's learned you're boring and harmless. A coyote standing on a trail is not a coyote hunting you. You want the city to trap an animal for existing near a paved loop that got built through its habitat.

Sofia Okoro

Jul 2, 2026, 12:06 AM

Bao every single week it's this. Somebody raises a real concern and you show up to explain why they're actually the problem. We hear you. WE'VE READ THE PAMPHLET.

Gabriela Rios

Jul 2, 2026, 12:22 AM

"Manage the bold ones" is such a clean phrase for what you're actually asking, which is kill it. Say the word. You want it killed because it made you uncomfortable on your walk. Habituation is created by PEOPLE feeding and leaving trash. Trap-and-kill just opens a territory for the next one and you're back here in a month.

Amber Rahimi

Jul 2, 2026, 12:38 AM

Genuine question, not taking a side yet — does the city even trap coyotes? I thought Irvine's whole policy was hazing + reporting through Access Irvine and they don't relocate/remove unless there's an actual attack.

Darya Solis

Jul 2, 2026, 12:55 AM

Amber they don't, and that's exactly the problem. "Report it on the app" and then nothing happens. I've filed on Coyote Cacher three times for one near Quail Hill that follows dog walkers. Three times. It's still there. So spare me the "just report it" line.

Vahe Martinez

Jul 2, 2026, 1:16 AM

Following isn't stalking. Escorting behavior is a coyote making sure you leave the area near a den, especially this time of year with pups. It walks you OUT. That's not it hunting your labradoodle, Darya.

Darya Solis

Jul 2, 2026, 1:27 AM

Oh good, the escort theory. Very comforting. I'll tell my dog it's just being walked to the property line.

Courtney Khan

Jul 2, 2026, 1:47 AM

The eye-rolling in this thread is unreal. Vahe is literally telling you the documented reason for the behavior and you're doing a bit. If you actually cared about safety you'd want the accurate information, not the version that lets you stay mad.

Eun Liu

Jul 2, 2026, 2:06 AM

Courtney nobody is "doing a bit." Some of us just don't think a wild predator that no longer moves for humans is a fun coexistence win. You can know the behavior AND still think a bold one near a school-adjacent trail is a problem. Both things.

Claire Harris

Jul 2, 2026, 2:22 AM

The word "predator" is doing so much work in these threads. A 30 lb animal that eats gophers and fallen avocados. Meanwhile the actual thing making them bold is us — the fruit rotting under everyone's trees, the cat food on porches, the open trash the night before pickup. Fix the buffet and the boldness fades. That's not preachy, that's just how it works.

Karan Rodriguez

Jul 2, 2026, 2:40 AM

"That's not preachy" — said the preachiest sentence in the thread. Claire I promise you the family that loses a pet does not want a lecture about their avocado tree.

Leila Kang

Jul 2, 2026, 2:53 AM

I'm genuinely somewhere in the middle here and reading this is exhausting. I have a small dog and I AM nervous on the Oso Creek trail at dusk. But I also don't actually want them killed. Is there no option between "do nothing" and "trap it"? Real question.

Neil Clark

Jul 2, 2026, 3:12 AM

Leila yes — the in-between is aggressive hazing done consistently by everybody. The reason that Jeffrey one doesn't move is that people freeze, or worse pull out a phone to film it, or a few clowns still toss it food. If every single person clapped, yelled, got big, made it a bad time to be near people, it re-learns fear fast. It works. It just needs everyone doing it.

Daniel King

Jul 2, 2026, 3:31 AM

Neil "if everyone just does the thing perfectly" is not a policy, it's a fantasy. You will never get 100% of people to haze correctly. Somebody's always going to feed it or film it. So your plan depends on a level of compliance that has never existed in human history.

Reza Shah

Jul 2, 2026, 3:48 AM

And your plan depends on the city funding a trapper to play whack-a-mole forever, which also has never worked anywhere. Removed a coyote in Seal Beach, three moved into the gap. It's called the vacuum effect. Look it up before you volunteer everyone else's tax money for a cull that makes it WORSE.

Juan Sato

Jul 2, 2026, 4:06 AM

Reza I love how the coexistence crowd always lands on "educate yourself" the second someone disagrees. That's your whole move. We're not stupid, we just weigh a child's safety over a coyote's territory and you can't stand that.

Gabriela Rios

Jul 2, 2026, 4:17 AM

Juan nobody said you're stupid. We said the removal thing doesn't do what you think it does. Those are different sentences. And no one has shown me a single kid attacked on the Jeffrey loop — you're arguing from a thing that hasn't happened to justify killing a thing that's just standing there.

Xavier Young

Jul 2, 2026, 4:37 AM

"Hasn't happened yet" is the whole point Gabriela. You want to wait until it does? There was a toddler bitten in Cypress a few years back. You just get to hand-wave that because it's inconvenient to your worldview.

Malik Solis

Jul 2, 2026, 4:52 AM

Xavier that Cypress case was a coyote that had been actively fed by residents for months. Which is the ENTIRE argument the coexistence side keeps making. You just used our strongest example against us and called it your point.

Sofia Okoro

Jul 2, 2026, 5:14 AM

Ok this is the thing though. Every time a coexistence person gets cornered it's "well someone fed it." It's always someone else's fault, never the animal, never a reason to actually remove one. There is no scenario in your framework where a coyote is the problem. None.

Bao Farahani

Jul 2, 2026, 5:29 AM

Sofia because in almost every real case it genuinely is people. That's not a dodge, that's the data. I'll answer your question directly: yes, a coyote that has bitten a person gets removed, I support that. A coyote standing on a trail has not bitten anyone. See the difference?

Hannah Martinez

Jul 2, 2026, 5:45 AM

I filed on Coyote Cacher after one trotted past me on Barranca at 6:40am last week and honestly the app was easy and someone did follow up with hazing info. So it's not NOTHING. I'm worried but the reporting thing at least felt like doing something real.

Aiko Roberts

Jul 2, 2026, 6:00 AM

Hannah that's nice for Barranca. Meanwhile the one by Jeffrey that Joon is ACTUALLY talking about doesn't care about your follow-up email. Habituated is habituated. An info packet doesn't un-teach it.

Eun Liu

Jul 2, 2026, 6:17 AM

Exactly Aiko. Half these replies are answering a different, easier question than the one Joon asked. He said BOLD ONE THAT WON'T MOVE. Nobody on the coexist side will actually address that specific animal, they just keep swerving to trash cans and avocados.

Courtney Khan

Jul 2, 2026, 6:35 AM

Eun we ARE addressing it: haze that specific animal, hard and consistently, and pull the food sources that made it bold. That IS the answer to the bold one. You just don't like it because it requires effort from humans instead of a bullet. That's not us dodging, that's you not liking the answer.

Roya Cho

Jul 2, 2026, 6:50 AM

Genuinely though has anyone reported THAT specific Jeffrey coyote with the location and time, repeatedly? Because a pattern of reports on one animal at one spot is exactly what gets the city to actually send someone. One-off complaints on the app get lost. Joon if you walk it daily you're the perfect person to log it.

Amit Roberts

Jul 2, 2026, 7:07 AM

Roya I've logged that stretch. Repeatedly. What I got back was a link to the hazing PDF. So forgive me for being a little done with "just report it."

Meera Park

Jul 2, 2026, 7:24 AM

Amit here's the uncomfortable part though — if the PDF keeps coming back, it's because hazing IS the answer and the city knows the reports usually trace to human feeding or a den nearby. It's not the city blowing you off. It's the city telling you the thing you don't want to hear.

Darya Solis

Jul 2, 2026, 7:45 AM

"The thing you don't want to hear" — you people are incapable of a sentence that doesn't drip with superiority. Every reply is a little sermon about how the scared neighbor is secretly the villain. It is EXHAUSTING and it's why nobody wants to sit at your table.

Erin Smith

Jul 2, 2026, 8:02 AM

Darya I hear that it feels like sermonizing and I'll own that the tone gets preachy, mine included. But the frustration cuts both ways — from where I sit, "kill it" as a first move for an animal that's done nothing but exist feels like the extreme position, and we're the ones being called naive for saying slow down.

Yuki Mendoza

Jul 2, 2026, 8:15 AM

Reading all of this as a worried-but-open person and honestly BOTH sides are making it harder to actually be reasonable. One camp acts like a coyote on a trail is a serial killer, the other acts like anyone nervous is a bloodthirsty idiot. Most of us are just trying to walk our dog on Serrano Creek without a PhD in this.

Youssef Kaur

Jul 2, 2026, 8:37 AM

Thank you Yuki. Genuinely. I came in scared and I'm leaving more scared of the comment section than the coyotes.

Sofia Okoro

Jul 2, 2026, 8:51 AM

My kitten just came out of emergency surgery last night. Got him inside after but not fast enough. So while everyone's up here scoring points about vacuum effects and avocado trees — this is real for some of us right now and it happened in an afternoon, not at some spooky dusk hour. I don't have the energy for the theory today.

Gabriela Rios

Jul 2, 2026, 9:06 AM

Sofia I'm so sorry. That's awful and I hope he pulls through. Truly. That's the reality none of us should be flippant about, and I'll take the hit for how heated I got. I hope he's okay.

Claire Harris

Jul 2, 2026, 9:25 AM

Sofia that's genuinely heartbreaking and I'm sorry. And I'll say the thing gently because it matters and not to score anything — keeping cats fully indoors is the single most protective thing there is, coyotes or cars or anything else. Not a scold. Just — please keep him in when he heals. Rooting for the little guy.

Daniel King

Jul 2, 2026, 9:41 AM

See, THIS is what we're actually talking about. Not a coyote standing on a trail being philosophical. A cat cut open in the afternoon in someone's own neighborhood. That's the stakes. I'm sorry Sofia, and I hope everyone who called us hysterical is reading this.

Courtney Khan

Jul 2, 2026, 10:02 AM

Daniel a daytime cat loss is heartbreaking and also exactly the case where indoor cats + secured food is the fix — nobody was going to trap the specific coyote that did it, you'd never know which one. I'm not saying it to win. I'm saying it because it's the thing that actually would've protected her cat. That's not me being cold, that's the only lever that works.

Linh Moore

Jul 2, 2026, 10:15 AM

Curious question since it came up — is a coyote out in the afternoon actually unusual, or is that a myth? I always heard daytime sightings mean it's sick or bold but I genuinely don't know what's true anymore after this thread.

Vahe Martinez

Jul 2, 2026, 10:33 AM

Linh totally normal, especially now — pup season means parents hunt all day to feed the den. Daytime doesn't mean rabid or bold by itself. It's one of the most common misreads and it's why people panic when they don't need to.

Karan Rodriguez

Jul 2, 2026, 10:48 AM

Vahe "don't panic, it's just feeding its family all day in your neighborhood in broad daylight" is somehow the LEAST reassuring reassurance I've ever read. You realize that, right?

Ramil Williams

Jul 2, 2026, 11:06 AM

Karan lol fair, when you put it that way. But it's the difference between accurate and comforting — Vahe's right that it's normal, you're right that "normal" isn't the same as "pleasant." Both can be true. That's kind of the whole thread in one exchange.

Amber Rahimi

Jul 2, 2026, 11:23 AM

Ok so where I've landed after reading all 40 of these: report the specific Jeffrey one repeatedly with time+location on Coyote Cacher so it's a pattern not a one-off, haze it consistently, everybody lock up trash and cats and pick your fallen fruit. And the removal-vs-coexist people are going to have this exact fight again next week regardless. See you all then I guess.

Reza Li

Jul 2, 2026, 11:41 AM

Neutral read from the cheap seats: nobody changed their mind in 40 comments, one person's kitten got hurt for real, and the actual action items everyone can agree on got buried under the yelling. Bookmark Amber's comment, it's the only one that answered Joon's actual question.

Amit Roberts

Jul 2, 2026, 11:57 AM

Fine. I'll log the Jeffrey one again with times like Roya said and stop expecting the app to fix it overnight. I still think the bold ones need real management, and I still think half of you are too in love with being right to admit that. But Sofia I'm sorry about your cat. That part isn't a debate.

Bao Farahani

Jul 2, 2026, 12:14 PM

Amit that's honestly a better place to land than where this started. Log it, haze it, and if it ever actually bites someone I will stand next to you asking for it to be removed. Deal. Sofia — hope your boy heals up fast.