Father and 3-year-old son bitten by coyote at Irvine home

A coyote attacked a 3-year-old boy and his father outside their home in Irvine’s Portola Springs neighborhood Wednesday evening, causing officials to explore trapping and euthanizing coyotes that are behaving aggressively.

The father was kneeling in the front yard in the 70 block of Forbes around 6:20 p.m. when his son, who had been nearby, jumped onto his back, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Steve Concialdi said.

“He thought his son was just playing with him,” Concialdi said. “Then he felt a bite to his right buttocks area. He realized his son was bit in the knee and he was bit as well.”

After getting a call about the attack, paramedics responded to treat the wounds, which were minor, according to Concialdi.

The father then drove himself and the boy to a hospital, Concialdi said.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is canvassing the area looking for the coyote. The community where the attack occurred is gated.

Officials also will be working with professional trappers to catch and kill the coyote and any others that are acting aggressively, Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Janice Mackey said.

Officials swabbed the victims’ bites so that DNA taken from the wounds can be used to identify the coyote that attacked them, according to Irvine police.

Irvine, and the Portola Springs neighborhood in particular, have been beset recently by incidents involving aggressive coyotes.

Most complaints are about attacks on pets, but Wednesday was not the first time a small child has been hurt, according to Irvine police.

Four children, including a 3-year-old girl who was with her mother walking the family dog, were either bit or scratched between May 22 and July 5.

“I don’t think we should tolerate that kind of occurrence over and over again,” Irvine Mayor Steven Choi said after learning about the latest attack.

Choi said city and state officials need to make sure residents’ hands aren’t tied when trying to defend themselves against coyotes. Human safety, he said, should take priority.

“People are sometimes afraid when they use their own chosen method (that) they may be later charged for animal cruelty or whatever,” he said.

He suggested exploring any possible means of keeping coyotes out of residential areas.

In July, Portola Springs residents started a Neighborhood Watch-style program to keep an eye out for coyotes that have become comfortable around people.

Last month, Irvine police adopted a new tactic in the neighborhood to try to keep the animals at bay. For a few hours one evening, animal-control officers shot paintballs at coyotes to scare them off.

Officers now periodically patrol Portola Springs, shooting paint pellets at the animals, police spokeswoman Farrah Emami said. The idea is to teach the coyotes to fear and avoid humans, a method sometimes called hazing.

It’s unclear how long it could take for that to have an effect.

“It’ll have to be ongoing,” Mackey said. “We’re not going to get results right away.”

Coyotes typically will roam into urban areas because they are easy food sources, she said. To combat this, state officials are teaching residents how to make their neighborhoods less inviting by keeping garbage and other food out of reach.

“Coyotes are extremely resourceful,” Mackey said. “They want the biggest bang for their buck.”

Coyotes have been an issue in several Orange County cities. In Seal Beach, for example, at least 60 attacks on pets were reported in 2014. That led city officials to hire a pest-control company to trap coyotes and euthanize them in a mobile carbon dioxide chamber. However, a backlash against the practice influenced the city to halt it.