Sabha, Tamer
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Ben Shutman
Wednesday, July 15, 2026 10:16 AM
Sabha, Tamer
Cole, Rick; DerBoghossian, Megheti
Public Safety Committee : Coyotes
Pasadena Coyotes.pdf
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Good morning, attached is a .pdf for the Public Safety Committee meeting re: coyotes.
I believe I have sent it to the correct committee person, please assist me in getting it to the right person if I am incorrect.
Thankyou!
BenShutman •District 2
1 My name is Ben Shutman, I'm a district 2 resident, and I've lived on Las Lunas between Hill and Alien all my life. Coyotes have always been a factor where I live. However, in the last few years the coyotes around Jefferson Park have become much more frequent and aggressive. A couple of months ago I witnessed a coyote jump out of the bushes and attack a leashed dog in broad daylight.
The last few years we have had packs of coyotes taking over our streets. I've placed plenty of calls to the city re: coyotes and the suggestions from Pasadena government have been laughable. I'm not a character in a sitcom, but calling to speak to animal control felt like I was trapped in a joke. These things are not scared of humans and walk right up to us, and the suggestion is to extend my arms really wide and make noises at them? I'm getting told to "haze" the coyotes- respectfully .... How? The best suggestion that can be made is to throw rocks at the coyotes?
We're taking precautions and not feeding animals outside, not creating water sources, securing trash, investing in products to deter the coyotes, cleaning up the alley etc. These things have jumped the fence alongside the property and I find them in our backyard. It's almost like the coyotes want to move in. This is not "normal". This is not "normal" for relatives that live closer to the foothills. Calling the government is a joke-1 spent 3 weeks calling to report an injured coyote that was aggressive with cars and humans ... after 3 weeks it finally went away... hopefully Pasadena took care of it and the poor animal didn't die of an infection. If you (as in people in government) are looking at something like the number of reported calls to Pasadena Humane society as a metric for how severe this problem is, it's not a valid. I can only speak for a 1 block radius around my house. Zip-tie some trail cams at the corner of Sierra Bonita and Monte Vista.
I might have a degree in Biology but I'm not a working Biologist, and I've heard the line from the Biologists that "coyotes are part of the natural biodiverse environment" and therefore humans should not interfere. The concentration of coyotes in my area is not natural. I feel silly e-mailing Rick Cole regarding packs of diseased wild dogs running around the city- WTF, we're Pasadena and we have the Rose Parade.
At least we can point to a coyote and see it. We've got vector control problems from mosquitoes and standing water cause of Eaton. I'm concerned because I have participated in University of California sponsored Bioblitz wildlife surveys and there's some weird stuff in our foothills. I've spent some time gathering water and soil samples so a lab could sequence DNA from the samples to build a genetic profile of what's living in our foothills. Of all things, we have a reservoir of the bubonic plague in Hahamongna. The same fleas that bite squirrels also bite coyotes which also bite humans. Bubonic plague is also part of our "biodiverse" landscape, but just like a coyote, I don't really want it on my back porch.
The animals that are coming around are not healthy looking. They are scraggly and mangy. They are eating trash in Jefferson Park, I have followed a pack to south of Jefferson School alongside the 210 where the unhoused population are living. This is a very susceptible population- LA County is sending out press releases linking flea-borne typhus among unhoused populations.
The reality is that these wild animals are living in close proximity to a pregnant woman living without access to sanitation. Pasadena Public health does a great job - when I got giardia as a kid they spent a lot of resources tracing it back to me splashing around in a stream. I guess if Pasadena animal control can't deal with the coyotes, and basically we're being told that we're going to have to just deal with them, I'd like the Public Health department to weigh in. If I've just got to protect myself and my family from toxoplasmosis that's one thing, bubonic plague is a whole other situation. The one benefit is that the coyotes eat up dead things and roadkill, but that just means that they're going to be vectors for west nile virus. Fingers crossed they don't encounter the carcass of a rabid bat.
I don't know what to do, other than warn my neighbors. Signs have been popping up around the neighborhood. I hoped that when I printed these back in February that something would have been done by now. I've started to 3d print the signs so that I don't have to replace them when it rains. I hope my neighborhood isn't known for coyote attacks and it doesn't lower the property value. But I refuse to allow wild diseased dogs to take over.
In a weekend and a couple hundred dollars in parts and free software I can put together a camera system that can identify if an animal is in the frame and fire off an alert. Locally, we do not suffer from a lack of brainpower. Let's organize a hackathon to build tools to track and monitor the coyote situation. If what I'm being told is that I need to be a squeaky wheel, I can be a squeaky wheel. If I need to program an Al agent to call Pasadena's animal control hotline and to diligently sit on hold so that my call is logged, fine. This is an issue in and around Jefferson Park.
Respectfully, this is an issue around Jefferson Park. Please help us! If anyone would like to contact me for more information, Rick Cole has my info.
Ben Shutman- ,, District 2. 6/15/26
I have attached images to this document of the signs that I have been putting around the neighborhood.
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