Vanessa Hosseini
Jul 1, 2026, 11:05 PM
Pulled this off the OC Animal Care page because a neighbor kept insisting coyotes "never" go after anything bigger than a rabbit. Not true. Their own guidance lists small dogs and cats as prey, and says the animals lose their fear of people fast once they associate us with food — that's the part people gloss over. Around the Aliso Viejo Ranch trail and the greenbelt behind Glenwood I've counted at least three that do not flinch anymore, middle of the afternoon, walkers ten feet away. That's a habituated animal, and habituated is the one that becomes a problem. So a few things I'd rather see enforced than debated: nothing edible left out, period — no cat bowls on porches, no fallen avocados sitting for days, lids latched. Dogs on a short leash on the Ranch trail, not the flexi ones. And report every bold daytime one to Coyote Cacher, because the county only acts on a pattern if the pattern is actually logged. I know the "give them space, they were here first" line is popular, but space only works if the animal still wants distance from us. Once it doesn't, tolerance isn't coexistence, it's just waiting.
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