A 2-year-old girl is up and around today after a coyote bit her leg and dragged her away from her mother visiting Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress last week.
Traps were set up and three coyotes were later shot and killed at the cemetery at 4471 Lincoln Ave. out of fears the scavenging animals were just doing what they normally … er … I mean … because of the grave public safety threat.
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The incident with the toddler happened Thursday afternoon, when the girl was playing only 10 feet away from her mother who was visiting her grandmother's grave. The coyote first bit the girl and then tried to drag her into the bushes–proving yet again that the dingo is not the only creature who takes your babies.
The girl was treated for rabies and a 2.5-inch gash on her leg last week. She was reportedly up and around and in good spirits today. But you can catch a whiff of please-don't-sue-us-ness in a statement from Ben Sussman, Forest Lawn's vice president of community relations and media management: “We deeply regret that it occurred and hope for a speedy recovery for the child.”
Besides the traps and killings, the cemetery has posted warning signs about coyotes being spotted on the property. That's spotted as in being seen, not spots on Wiley E.
This is apparently the first reported coyote attack on a person in Orange County so far this year.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.