Robert Garnica has been going where coyotes go for 15 years as a full-time trapper for the Los Angeles County agriculture commissioner's pest management division. He drives overgrown paths and walks concrete storm ditches near hillside homes where backyards beckon with fruit trees, dog-food dishes, cats and children.
"I cannot advertise what I do," Garnica said during a recent dawn patrol in Diamond Bar. "People are against what we do. What can I say? We're trying to protect people and their pets."
Outwitting coyotes takes years of practice. The wily animals quickly learn to avoid cages or even carefully camouflaged traps that give off a human scent.
When he does trap one, Garnica, 49, dispatches the animal with a single shot from a .22-caliber rifle. Garnica's boss, Raymond Smith, says shooting is usually the most humane way to dispose of problem coyotes. The law prohibits release of such animals into the wild and a relocated coyote would probably be killed by other coyotes in the area anyway.
Sometimes Garnica goes months without trapping an animal before his luck changes. Then he might catch seven in a single week, as he did in Diamond Bar recently. He confines his work mainly to public land, venturing onto private property only when invited by owners concerned that coyotes are coming too close, too often. When a coyote begins showing no fear of people, it can be a prelude to an attack.
With the multiplicity of jurisdictions involved and no central accounting of incidents involving coyotes, the scope of the problem of people being bitten and attacks on pets in the Southland is uncertain.
Just recently, two young children -- one in Northridge and another in Glendale -- were severely mauled.
Wheeling his vehicle over a tall curb and toward one of his traps in Diamond Bar, Garnica leaned forward and pointed to a concrete ditch running up a developed bluff.
"He's probably coming right through here," Garnica said. The loss of several pet cats in the neighborhood had prompted his visits here.
Scat and paw prints indicate that this is a well-used coyote corridor. Yet Garnica's trap is empty and the bait undisturbed. Chances are, he said, the coyote recognized his handiwork or his scent.
If he can trap just one coyote, Garnica hopes, others in the area may sense peril and depart.
Garnica reset the trap with a different kind of bait. Then he opened a vial of deer urine he carries for just such occasions and spread it nearby, hoping to disguise his own scent.
