WOODLAND HILLS — The nocturnal howls that awoke Lana Kuhlen from a dead sleep five months ago signaled a change in her Woodland Hills neighborhood and launched her into the midst of a contentious citywide debate over the merits of wild animal trapping.

Coyotes soon began to feast on her neighbor's ducks, chickens and cats, leaving the carcasses on neighborhood lawns. Finally, a determined coyote scaled a six-foot fence to eat Kuhlen's own chicken.

"It's a huge problem, it really is," said Kuhlen, who lives in the flatlands of Woodland Hills, far from the traditional rural habitat of the coyote. "I kinda feel like we have become the fast food capital for coyotes out here."

In the past year, Kuhlen's complaints have been echoed many times over by distressed west San Fernando Valley residents, prompting the Los Angeles Board of Animal Regulation Commissioners to review its 10-month-old ban on coyote trapping.

At the heart of that review will be a dilemma with which cities throughout Southern California have struggled for years: Can trapping and killing coyotes put an end to coyote problems, or is a public education program more effective?

If Los Angeles officials look to other Southern California cities for guidance, they will find that most municipalities faced with coyote problems use traps on a limited basis, relying primarily on educating the public about how to coexist with \o7 Canis latrans.\f7

Of 27 Southern California cities with large wildlife populations, none completely ban coyote trapping, according to interviews with officials at the eight animal control agencies that serve those cities.

Nonetheless, animal control officials from those agencies stress that trapping is at best an ineffective, short-term solution.

By one estimate, trapping is successful only 10% of the time. Often, the traps snare more pets than coyotes. Moreover, when a coyote is killed, the remaining coyotes in the area tend to fill the void, usually with larger litters.

"I don't think trapping is effective," said Marsha Wyatt, a state officer with the Pomona Valley Humane Society, which provides animal control services to 11 cities in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. "When you move one adult coyote out . . . two juveniles will move in."

In Pasadena, animal control officials tried coyote trapping on a large-scale basis about six years ago but found that only sick or injured coyotes were caught in the traps. The healthy coyotes that preyed on pets escaped.