As Los Angeles polishes its image ahead of hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics, the City of Angels seems determined to showcase a different kind of spectacle than organizers likely envisioned.
This one featuring wildlife.
While officials have spent months grappling with a rat infestation so severe that Los Angeles recently dethroned Chicago as America’s most rodent-plagued metro area, fueling more outbreaks of flea-borne typhus, Mother Nature apparently decided to send in reinforcements of its own.
Case in point: A stalled 22-unit condo development in West Hollywood, abandoned for years and once home to squatters, has now become “Coyote Condo,” a full-blown den for one of the area’s most successful apex predators.
A pack of coyotes have moved into an abandoned West Hollywood condo complex, forcing locals to live in fear while demanding the city steps in.The complex at Romaine Street and North Spaulding Avenue. which has been under construction and empty for years, was first taken over by homeless squatters that have now been replaced by the wild animals.“It’s kind of interesting to walk out of your apartment and look up and there’s a coyote looking at you,” Cindy Sorley told CBS LA.Shocking videos and pictures appear to show six coyotes roaming the empty building, with each one taking up a different room. There’s also videos capturing daily and nightly howling/barking of the pack.
While the wild canids have become celebrities, not everyone in the West Hollywood area is thrilled with the development.
“Most interestingly — and I find this kind of exciting actually — every night around 10 or 11, you start to hear this gang of coyotes howling,” resident Paul Manganello told KTLA. “It’s not the worst thing in the world; it reminds you that you’re part of nature.”But some residents aren’t so enthused with the nightly howling, saying that it’s disruptive and keeps them from getting a full night’s sleep. While they aren’t angry about the coyotes, residents say they want the city to do something about the abandoned site.The housing project, which was billed as a four-story, 22-unit residential condominium development, has been in the works since at least 2017, but appears to have stalled several years ago. The development was slated to replace eight units on four parcels, according to city records.
It’s like an episode of “Life After People”, but humans get to remain and experience the decay.
However, as cute as these beasts are, they can be dangerous. There was an attack on a toddler in the Los Angeles area that occurred this spring.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed that the coyote responsible for the Tuesday morning attack on 4-year-old Solomon was located and “humanely euthanized” on Thursday.The attack occurred just before 9 a.m. on Moorehaven Drive while the child’s mother was unloading groceries.DNA testing had already linked this specific animal to a prior incident on February 11.Solomon’s grandfather reports the boy is in good spirits despite receiving seven puncture wounds and undergoing a series of rabies treatments.
I will simply note that San Diego’s burgeoning rat population is not just a problem because of the potential for disease. The explosion in rodents has created buffets that make urban living easier for coyotes, encouraging them to linger in our neighborhoods rather than return to the wild.
Instead of treating these predators like mini-celebrities, perhaps locals could consider using domestic hounds, such as Karelian Bear Dogs, to actively recondition coyotes to relearn that human spaces are off-limits.
But the way things are going, I project that by the time the Olympic Marathon occurs, the runners may be joined by Los Angeles’ newest celebrities.
More here:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY