Wildlife officers kill Los Angeles coyote they believed was already dead

Officers first shot the coyote in October after it bit a 16-month-old child

California wildlife officers have shot and killed the coyote that some Atwater Village residents called Wiley, weeks after neighbors reported seeing the animal back in their Los Angeles neighborhood despite an October shooting that officials believed had ended its life. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed on Tuesday that the coyote was dead.

A file photograph accompanying the report showed a coyote walking through Griffith Park, the nation’s largest urban park, in Los Angeles. The photograph was taken by David McNew for Getty Images.

Asked what went awry, the department said in a statement provided to KTLA that officers shot Wiley on 16 October. The officers could not locate the coyote’s body afterward and concluded the animal had died.

The shooting followed the bite of a 16-month-old child, an attack that drew local uproar in the neighborhood. The coyote had also menaced residential pets.

The October intervention appeared to have ended the matter. Instead, residents reported seeing a limping Wiley back in Atwater Village in recent weeks.

Officers returned to Atwater Village, where they shot Wiley for a second time, the department said.

Some residents had given the coyote the name Wiley as his presence vexed the area. Wiley had displayed increasingly aggressive and brazen behavior, residents said, scampering through people’s backyards.

The wild animal was reportedly being fed by an unidentified man.

The second shooting brought cold comfort to some residents, who said the coyote’s death could have been prevented.

“I don’t think he should have been euthanized because coyotes are predators, and they’re going to do what they’re going to do,” neighbor Ana Fishman told KTLA. “And that’s not his fault. He should have been relocated. I think the fact that coyotes apparently, in the state of California, can’t be relocated is wrong.”