Parents Warned After Coyotes Attack 2 Boys

When 5-year-old Erek Sahleen and his neighbor, Jeffrey Marshall, 8, went exploring in a dry lake bed near their Yorba Linda homes this week, they knew coyotes had been seen in the area.

But the boys didn’t expect a coyote attack.

Erek has been undergoing rabies shots for coyote bites on both ankles and one thigh since he was attacked at dusk Tuesday, and county animal control workers are staking out the area to try to capture the coyote that attacked him.

The chief county animal control official calls it an isolated incident, but neighborhood residents, who have seen coyotes while jogging, horseback-riding or playing in the area, disagree among themselves. The neighbors also disagree about how dangerous the animals are.

Erek and Jeffrey characterized their encounter with two coyotes as “scary.”

While the two boys walked in the undeveloped, bushy area, they suddenly noticed two coyotes, Erek said. At first the boys stood still, but when the coyotes saw them, they started running up the hill, and that was when Erek fell.

Heard Screaming

Jeffrey said he heard his mother, Joy, and brother, Jonathan, screaming as the coyote attacked Erek.

“I grabbed Erek’s leg and pulled him up the hill,” Jeffrey’s mother said.

When Jonathan, 11, and the boys’ father, Jim Marshall, returned to the lake bed that night to get Jeffrey’s bike, they had to ward off the coyotes by throwing rocks, Jonathan said.

Mary Lou Sahleen, Erek’s mother, said they were lucky that Jeffrey’s mother saw the attack.

“When we took him to the hospital he was in shock, his face was flushed and he was shaking,” she said.

Erek, who has five sisters and three brothers, received shots in each of his wounds Tuesday night as well as a booster shot in his arm, his mother said. He received another booster shot Friday, and will need three more over the next month to complete the treatment as protection against possible infection.

Called Isolated Incident

Joe Oliver, the county’s chief animal control officer, said workers periodically have checked the area for coyotes from sunrise to sunset since Tuesday night.

Oliver said he believes that the attack was an isolated incident and that there are two coyotes in the area, probably one male and one female “in heat,” and the boys just got in the way.

Although Oliver could not recall any similar incidences in Yorba Linda, San Clemente has a history of problems with coyotes.

Last August, 13 coyotes were killed in San Clemente by a volunteer hunter after the animals began appearing in developed areas. During those two weeks, 2-year-old Antonio (Nino) Santis had a close encounter with one in the backyard of his San Clemente home when a coyote grabbed him by the diaper. His father, Tony, yelled to scare the coyote away. The child was not seriously injured.

Two other youths were attacked in San Clemente by coyotes in 1983, sparking the creation of special police sharpshooter patrols which shot and killed six coyotes in the city’s hilly areas within two weeks after the first attack.

Animal control workers will continue observing the Yorba Linda area for another week, Oliver said. If they spot a coyote, they will shoot it with a tranquilizer gun and then watch it for signs of ill health.

“My advice to parents is that I would keep children out of the area,” he said. “If they’re not bitten by a coyote, they will be bitten by a rattlesnake. It isn’t and shouldn’t be a play area.”

Sahleen agreed that the area isn’t safe.

‘Get Them Out of Here’

“I think the coyotes are getting aggressive and the county should get them out of here,” she said. “I think there will be more attacks if they don’t do something.”

But others in the neighborhood disagreed that the coyotes are a threat. Marshall, who moved there from Anaheim Hills a month ago, said she doesn’t want the coyotes removed. “We think the area is unique, and we want to preserve it. It’s just not normal for coyotes to attack,” she said. “One coyote just got a little bold. I’m not scared to live here.”

Judy Shipman, who has a 9-year-old son and a 12-year-old son, also said she believes that it was an isolated incident.

Shipman, who used to jog in the dry lake bed, said she has seen coyotes there, but they “slinked away” when they saw people.

“I don’t think they should be abolished,” she said. “We just have to use common sense when we live around open areas.”

Both Marshall and Shipman said their children will be allowed to play in the dry bed during the day, but Sahleen was opposed to letting her children near the area.