Coyote killed following attack on 2-year-old outside home, California officials say

A week-long search for a coyote that tried to drag away a 2-year-old girl in her Woodland Hills front yard has ended, California authorities told news outlets.

“On Dec. 9, our partners at the USDA Wildlife Services worked with wildlife officers and successfully trapped a coyote in the immediate vicinity off the street where the attack occurred,” Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told KCBS.

The coyote’s DNA matched that recovered from the girl’s pants and it was euthanized, Foy told KTLA.

Security video from Dec. 2 shows the coyote trying to carry away Ariel Eliyahuo’s daughter by her leg just after they arrived home from her preschool, McClatchy News previously reported.

“I heard her screaming and crying and I thought she fell down and I saw the coyote was there,” Eliyahuo, who had been cleaning her toys out of his vehicle, said.

The video shows Eliyahuo charge the coyote, which drops his daughter, then scoop her up and hurl a water bottle at it.

Wildlife officials said the coyote had been a problem in the neighborhood for weeks.

“We had already been talking about this as there were previous reports about the coyote potentially threatening pets,” Foy said.

Woodland Hills is a neighborhood in the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles.

This story was originally published December 11, 2022 at 8:53 AM with the headline "Coyote killed following attack on 2-year-old outside home, California officials say."