U.S. Postal Service deliveries to a neighborhood in a Los Angeles-area town are indefinitely suspended following nearby coyote attacks.
The attacks occurred in Carson, California, about 18 miles south of Los Angeles. They led the U.S. Postal Service to suspend mail delivery in a nearby neighborhood until the coyote problem is resolved.
Postal officials told people they could go to the local post office to collect their mail, according to KCBS-TV.
Tom Williams, a resident in the neighborhood that is now going without mail delivery, told KCBS-TV on Wednesday that “they’re holding us responsible for wild animals in the community … we’re going to have to pay a private pest control person to come out, $400-500, up to a few thousand dollars … What is it going to take to get our mail back?”
The most recent incident happened on March 31, when a 4-year-old named Solomon was attacked by a coyote as his mom unloaded groceries. The young boy told KTTV-TV that “it bit me. It was trying to drag me.”
His mother, Sarina Donohoo, told KABC-TV that “all of a sudden, I just hear him screaming and I turned around and I screamed as well because I see the coyote on the top of him.”
She grabbed Solomon and brought him inside; the toddler suffered “superficial” punctures to his torso and one of his legs, according to KABC-TV.
Solomon received treatment and also got rabies shots, according to KTTV-TV. The same coyote that attacked Solomon was also responsible for another attack on a child on Feb. 11.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife euthanized the coyote in question on April 2, according to KNBC-TV, and indicated it could have also been involved in one of two attacks that occurred at a park in Carson on March 26 and March 30.
The March 26 attack was against a 31-year-old woman, while the March 30 attack was against another child, according to KNBC-TV.
State wildlife officials are using DNA evidence from those two attacks to try to determine which of the attacks the now-dead coyote was responsible for, or whether they need to start looking for another coyote.
