Serial predator ‘came quietly from behind and pounced’
Chronicle in an interview at their Moraga home, as Callie, wearing a blue princess dress, tugged on her leg. The mother wanted to use only her first name and last initial to protect her child’s privacy, a request The Chronicle granted according to its source policy. “She can’t see the distinction between a coyote and a dog. And she won’t believe me that a coyote can’t open a door.”
Authorities said they haven’t seen such repeated attacks before from an individual coyote, an animal known to shy away from human contact. They’ve posted coyote warning signs near the bite sites and notices on private property alerting passersby that animal traps have been set in the area. There’s a steady stream of trappers, hunters, wardens and police driving up and down nearby streets each morning — so far, the animal bites have happened mostly in the Campolindo neighborhood in the dawn hours and downtown Lafayette at night. In between is the Lafayette Reservoir and its 928 acres of open space, popular with hikers and joggers — and coyotes.
As of Thursday, the coyote, which has been linked to all the attacks by DNA, has avoided capture, said Patrick Foy, a California Fish and Wildlife captain.
“We’ve got a wellrun operation going all day and night,” Foy said by phone. “We just can’t seem to catch the coyote.”
More than a dozen traps are set, and hunters from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are driving along the Rim Trail, which circles the reservoir on ridgetops. On Wednesday, the Moraga Town Council received an update on the situation. A police lieutenant told them “a 247 operation was in place.”
“We have open space right next to us,” Police Chief Jon King told the council, “and we’re going to have coyotes encroaching.”
After Callie’s bite, some neighbors began walking their dogs holding shower curtain rods or whistles, stopping to exchange their stories of sightings from opposite sidewalks. It’s been a busy thoroughfare during the pandemic as people exercise outside.
Two days after the attack on Callie, a young man walked out of a convenience store in downtown Lafayette — far away from any open space — and sat down in the parking lot. The coyote appeared and bit him in the left leg. When he stood up, the coyote ran off, Foy said.
NBC Bay Area spoke to 20yearold John Stevenson,
who said the animal bit him through his jeans and that when he pulled up his pants, he saw puncture wounds. He didn’t see or hear the animal approach, but filmed it across the street after.
“I just got bit by the same coyote that’s biting everyone else,” he told the station. “That’s immediately what I thought.”
That latest attack — which officials linked to the same animal by DNA — baffled officials because it’s so far from any open space and in a very busy section of Lafayette.
“It has us scratching our heads, because it’s not in an area that coyotes are generally comfortable in,” Foy said. He doesn’t believe the animal is rabid, because witnesses report a healthy and strong coyote, and animals usually die fairly quickly after contracting rabies.
On Feb. 17 around 8:30 a.m., Jackie said she took her daughters on their daily morning walk through the neighborhood, but avoided the dirt trails nearby because they were muddy from recent
rain.
Callie normally rides in the stroller, but that morning she decided to walk alongside her mother, who was pushing the empty carriage while holding her infant daughter in a BabyBjörn carrier.
They had just begun walking up a hill when Callie screamed. A coyote had grabbed her. Jackie called it an “ambush.”
“It came quietly from behind and pounced,” the mother recalled. “I started swinging and waving my hands at it. It was a moment of shock, and I don’t remember if I punched it or not.”
The coyote stopped and backed off about 10 feet before charging again and backing up. It repeated the threats about 20 times, the mother said.
“It was remarkable just how not scared it was,” said Jackie, who runs by herself early in the mornings and frequently encounters coyotes that keep their distance. “Nothing I could do would scare this coyote away.”
She screamed as she held the stroller in one hand and a blanket in another and tried to corral her wailing daughter who wanted to run away. A neighbor heard the commotion, saw Jackie panicking through his home surveillance camera and came to help. Finally, the animal scampered off up the hill.
Callie had about four to five wounds. It was difficult to tell if they were bite or claw marks, Jackie said.
Police and firefighters responded, collected the girl’s flower dress and swabbed her wounds. The DNA matched the wanted coyote.
When her husband came home, Jackie struggled to tell him what happened. She was crying hysterically. At the hospital, doctors thoroughly cleaned the wounds and poked about 20 shots around each abrasion.
“She wasn’t talking at first, and then the first thing she said was, ‘I wish you would take me to Disneyland,’ ” Jackie said. “Then the second thing was, ‘Mommy, can you please stop crying?’ ”
Since then, doctors have Callie on antibiotics as she fights an onandoff fever. Three of her four rabies treatments are done, and each time the Oakland Children’s Hospital staff showers her with candies, necklaces and Otter Pops to help ease the discomfort. Her neighbors have also dropped off food and gifts for Callie.
But it has been difficult in the days since the attack. She will only sleep close to her mom, the walks have completely stopped and she doesn’t want to play outside, even in her fenced backyard.
“We’re working on all that with her, and it’s a process,” Jackie said.
On a recent early morning jog, Jackie passed a mom with an infant daughter walking in the neighborhood and stopped to advise her of the coyote attacks. In December, a man was bitten on the leg by this coyote while working out on the Campolindo High School track, a few blocks from the attack on Callie. Days later, a man was bitten behind a Lafayette grocery store. In July, the coyote bit a 2yearold at a nearby park.
“I don’t think it’s safe for kids to be out alone at least in the early morning and late evening,” Jackie said. “It needs to be caught or it will keep on happening.”