A hunt for justice is on in Studio City after someone shot a beloved young coyote twice in the head with a pellet gun, leading to an infection so severe that veterinarians decided the most humane thing to do was to euthanize her.
Mark Rulon, a wildlife activist and founder of Southern California Pit Bull Rescue, is personally offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of anyone responsible for shooting the coyote known as “Wendy.”
“Here’s a coyote with her face swollen to the point where her eyes are shut and her tongue is hanging out, surviving in the Valley in 100-degree heat,” Rulon said. “She’s one of the most amazing animals I’ve ever known.”
Wendy the coyote was a fixture in the San Fernando Valley community for years, often spotted wandering around the neighborhood or curling up to sunbathe in a patch of grass, he said.
Residents first noticed the swelling in her face about a year ago, and it worsened over time to the point where she struggled to see properly, eat or drink.
Southern California Pit Bull Rescue and another nonprofit, Wildlife Care of SoCal, teamed up last month to bring Wendy off the streets in hopes of getting her desperately needed medical care.
But despite the coyote’s fighting spirit, her injuries were too extreme to recover from with any meaningful quality of life.
“It is difficult to comprehend how much this young coyote endured over the course of the past year,” Wildlife Care of SoCal wrote in an update Tuesday. “She survived devastating trauma, two pellets lodged in her head, and a relentless infection that gradually destroyed part of her jaw — yet she continued adapting, searching for food and fighting to remain alive.”
The damage from Wendy’s infection meant she would never have been able to hunt or scavenge again and would instead require a soft food diet for the rest of her life.
“This would have meant that she could never return to the life and freedom she deserved, even in a captive setting,” the organization stated. “This is no life for a 3-year-old coyote.”
News of the young coyote’s death was met with an outpouring of grief by many residents, as well as outrage over who would shoot her.
It is illegal to discharge a pellet or BB gun outside an authorized target range in the city of Los Angeles. Shooting a wild animal with a pellet gun and causing needless suffering is also within the scope of a felony animal cruelty charge.
Some on social media, however, raised concerns about the danger Wendy might have posed to pets, and argued it was possible someone shot at her defensively.
Rulon said these comments have been hard for him to read.
“I just don’t understand the stance that people think coyotes are evil when the reality is human beings are the evil apex predator on this planet,” he said. “Coyotes only kill to survive. Humans kill for fun.”
The disparate reaction to Wendy’s death highlights the ongoing tension in many Los Angeles-area communities that sit on the edge of the wildland-urban interface, where territory encroachment, wildfires and extreme weather continue to push humans and predators into closer contact.
This spring saw a massive uproar over the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s decision to euthanize “Blondie,” a well-loved mama bear in Monrovia with two young cubs, following two incidents where she was accused of swiping at residents.
There are also frequent mountain lion sightings in and around Los Angeles, including recent incidents in Santa Monica and Pasadena where lions were tranquilized and removed.
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