By Isaac Cox, Nov. 19, 2024
At least one Cal Poly Pomona student suffered minor scratches in a surprising encounter with a coyote on campus near new residence halls Nov.5, while several other students reported being “aggressively approached” by a coyote, according to an email sent my University Police Department.
No one was seriously injured or wounded, but a manufacturing engineering student Bryce Kiehn claimed to have been either scratched or bitten by the coyote he encountered. Kiehn and another CPP student Javier Cervantes uploaded live footage of a surprising encounter they had with a coyote on Reddit.
“I was walking, and it seemed like, from the bush, he either nipped or scratched my leg,” Kiehn said. “There was a little blood, so I ended up yelling and he backed up. I started heading towards him and made myself look bigger and then he started running away.”
After the encounter, Kiehn decided to go back to his dorm and do research on coyote attacks, leading him to the ER to receive a rabies shot as precaution.
“That night, I was kind of stressing out, looking stuff up, freaking out a little bit, but I wasn’t trying to worry too much,” said Kiehn. “The bite or scratch did puncture into my skin, so I was worried about that for sure. So the next morning, I went to the health office and they were super helpful and they talked me through the steps and what I had to go through and figure it out.”
Kiehn also mentioned the importance of getting a rabies shot in the case of being attacked by a coyote.
“The thing is, you have to just assume you have it (rabies) just to be safe,” Kiehn said. “Because it turns out if you do have it and you weren’t vaccinated or didn’t go through the steps, you could die because once you do get it, it goes to your brain, and you already have it and it’s already too late. It’s better to be more safe than sorry,” said Kiehn.
Coyotes are known to be scavengers for food that oftentimes find what they are looking for; they usually feast on small prey like rabbits, cats, rats, squirrels and chipmunks. When it comes to humans, coyotes are known to be afraid of them and do not typically cause harm. In fact, they view humans as bigger animals and tend to stay away.
Biology professor A. Kristopher Lappin said children are most vulnerable during a coyote sighting.
“Sometimes if you are on the edge habitats where they occur like hill size and thick brush and coyotes are there, they have been known to approach small children, like those 4-year-olds or toddlers,” Lappin said. “If those kids are by themselves over by the brush and parents aren’t watching them, a coyote might come up to them and check them out. There have been a couple cases of one getting nipped or dragged a little bit, and the people run over and it scares it right away.”
The explanation for why the coyote was on campus in the first place is simple. Biology professor Janel Ortiz, who has been teaching at CPP for five years, said coyotes can live anywhere, typically live in human-dominated environments where there are natural elements, making CPP a great habitat.
“There’s just a lot of food resources available for them in our urban settings but also in our natural areas, too,” Ortiz said.
Not to mention, CPP’s campus is close to mountains and hills where coyotes also stay and can usually be seen during dusk or dawn. Ortiz said that it makes sense the coyotes were seen at campus around midnight.
Javier Cervantes, an architecture student at CPP, encountered a coyote while walking home toward the University Village. “I was in shock and didn’t know what to do,” Cervantes said and pointed out that he felt somebody grabbed his pants, and at first thought it was his friend’s prank. “And I guess I just shouted as it tried to scare me. Then I pulled up my phone to put the flash on and see if it was actually a coyote, and yeah, it was.”
He said that he started backing up but the coyote kept walking toward him.
Cervantes said. “It was probably very acclimated to people,” Cervantes said.
Soon after the incidents were posted, the University Police Department sent out a campuswide email describing the on-campus encounters. The email also provided a list of important actions to take in case other students or faculty members come across a coyote on campus. According to the email, UPD has increased patrols in the areas surrounding the encounters.
UPD officer Jose De Jesus Plasencia Jr. said that the police notified the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“Coyotes have been seen for years around here, and so it’s kind of not unusual to see a coyote as you’re traversing through the campus or hearing of one late at night as they make noise at night,” Plasencia Jr. said.
Plasencia Jr. also explained the best way to contact an official on campus is by dialing the number 3070 in case of another coyote encounter. He mentioned that dialing 911 is a good option, but calling the campus police is more beneficial as the police are already on-site and can fix the situation quicker.
According to an article published by San Diego County News Center, if people encounter a coyote, they should do the following: stop and yell at it to go away, make themselves look big and scary by waving their arms above their head, maintain eye contact, stomp their feet around, make loud noises and lastly, always, to maintain a safe distance.