Neighbors perplexed about dead coyote
By Kathryn Reed
MEYERS – Where is the carcass of the coyote that was shot in Meyers and who shot it? Those are the questions that are still not answered.
Jeff Morales discovered the dead animal Jan. 22 on his routine walk with his dog.
“The blood trail intersects my existing trail,” Morales told Lake Tahoe News.
At first he thought it might have been a Husky that was killed because he just saw a pile of fur. He took his dog home and came back with a camera to document what he saw. This was after he made a series of phone calls to El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department, El Dorado County Animal Control, California Department of Fish Wildlife and Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care.
Who killed a coyote in Meyers and took the carcass a day later is a mystery. Photo/Provided
Lt. Robert Gerat with Animal Control looked around a little that afternoon according to Lynn and John Setnor whose house is the closest to the trail of blood, but reportedly didn’t find anything. Gerat told Lake Tahoe News his agency has no jurisdiction over this incident. “No laws were broken that we enforce,” he said.
Blood was visible Jan. 27 beginning about 100 feet near the Setnor property on Ottawa Drive, with it becoming more prominent where the animal likely ran farther into the forest from its aggressor before eventually collapsing and dying.
The Setnor property is surrounded by California Tahoe Conservancy land on both sides and national forest in the back. It is not fenced, so it looks like acres of open space.
John Setnor and Morales had a conversation last Wednesday, with Morales telling him about the coyote. Their recollections of the dialog as told to Lake Tahoe News are similar. They live in the same neighborhood. What is different is how well they say they know each other. Morales says they wave and are cordial. Setnor said he didn’t know who Morales was when he was behind his house.
They agree Setnor was on his back deck with a gun. Setnor says the only gun he owns is a BB gun. He’s not a hunter. He offered to let sheriff’s officials search his home for weapons, though they declined to do so. Setnor said he had the gun because there had been suspicious people on his street.
Morales said from his vantage point he could not tell what kind of gun Setnor had.
Neither John nor Lynn Setnor have ventured to see the bloody trail. Walking on the slick area is not something they want to chance, especially with John Setnor having a surgically repaired leg. They vehemently deny having anything to do with killing the coyote, professing their love of wildlife.
When Morales was going back to the area the morning of Jan. 23 he ran into sheriff’s Lt. Pete Van Arnum so he offered to show the lieutenant the body. But when they got to the spot the coyote was not there.
Morales said there was no evidence of it being dragged off. Only large bootprints were left in the snow – and the animal’s blood.
“It appears someone with boots removed the coyote,” Van Arnum told Lake Tahoe News. “If someone had taken the coyote legally, they could be entitled to the pelts. There is no evidence Mr. Setnor took it.”
Van Arnum also does not believe Setnor killed the animal.
It is presumed a gun left the large hole in the side of the coyote’s neck. But what type is hard to say because no official has looked at the carcass.
As for the legalities, coyotes may be hunted in the Lake Tahoe Basin with a permit and a shotgun, Van Arnum said. However, U.S. Forest Service regulations prohibit discharging a firearm of any kind within 150 yards of a house or building. This would have been that close.
Van Arnum said the odds of finding the culprit are not very good.
“If nothing else, all this uproar about the incident will probably keep someone from doing it again in that area,” Van Arnum said. “Obviously, it was very close to a residential area. We don’t want people shooting guns in residential areas.”
Is it illegal to shoot a coyote with a pellet gun?
Who well does birth control work in decreasing the coyote population ?
How well does birth control work in decreasing the coyote population ?
Government sponsored birth control? Horrors!
This question as to whether it is legal or not is missing the point. Do you need a law to tell you not to kill innocent animals? Apparently some people do. This is more evidence of the sick gun culture in the USA. How long before we have our own mass shooting?
Okay I get it’s not illegal to shoot a coyote, but isn’t illegal to discharge a firearm in a populated area?
The State Fish&Game code applies in this situation regarding shooting next to an occupied dwelling (Forest service laws do not apply). Not only does the State law apply to firearms it also applies to bows. Some cities and counties have more restrictive laws, but El Dorado County follows State law regarding this matter. Pellet & BB guns do not apply to this code.
John keeps a BB gun because there are suspicious people on his street, and takes the gun with him out on his deck when he see’s Morales, who’s eye is he ready to shoot out his or Morales’s?
birth control, what are you dbags talkin about?
I live in Sierra Tract
One word: Crossbow
ZZ Top, I live in Sierra Tract as well but I don’t see what that has to do with the dead coyote. I will agree that it very well could have been a crossbow. Too big of a hole for a small caliber firearm.OLS
I think you missed my point.
ZZ Top,
I’m sorry I guess I did miss your point(which was?). I knew a guy who had a high end crossbow, one that, while I don’t remember the foot per second rating, it was easily powerfull enough to bring down a deer.
Scary and lethal.
I’m glad you’re a Sierra Tract resident as am I. I’ve lived on the same street here since 1974. Come on by, always like to meet new peope. OLS
Coyotes are beautiful magnificent creatures and deserve to live just like any other living animal. People let’s please stop killing innocent animals. Murdering wildlife should not be tolerated in any community.
Please stop killing the animals that kill off every other animal in their territory. Yes… that makes a lot of sense.
Tell that to every person that has had to watch their dogs get ripped apart right in front of their eyes by a pack a manic nuisance predators that have already eaten every other animal in their territory. Go try to find a rabbit anywhere near the meadows area that they dominate at the expense of every other species. Go try to find any squirrels out in those meadows. What you will find in Sierra Tract is a lot of signs in the summer posted by people looking for missing pets.
I love all animals, not just one! If one starts to dominate an area so much that their food supply has to become local pets and they commonly roam the local neighborhood streets every night then maybe something has gone wrong and needs to be corrected.
You can re-train the pack to stay away from humans and their pets without killing off the whole group. By using padded traps (that don’t hurt the animals) You can create fear of humans and local populated places, after being trapped they can be release back into the wild. The real wilderness not right next to the local neighborhoods.
Lodi street is not the wild, it’s not the wilderness.
If the packs were being managed correctly than maybe good citizens won’t feel forced to become vigilantes and won’t find their own solutions to what they perceive to be a problem needing a solution.
After three low snowpack years it’s very clear the local packs have not been managed correctly.
I don’t own any type of guns, but I do travel with bear spray when I walk with my dogs to protect them.
Don’t think this is a real problem?
Google search: Coyote Problems
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=dnr+coyotes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=+coyote+problems&rls=en
It’s 47 pages long!
ZZ: It sounds like you are in favor of vigilante killing of coyotes? If you don’t own any guns, do you own crossbows that are capable of killing coyotes? The problem, which this article illustrates, is that people take the law into their own hands and do what they want with their own flawed logic. That’s why there are laws. The fact remains, this animal was killed cruelly and unnecessarily.
ZZ Top,
Thanks for clariying. Yes, lots of coyotes in Sierra Tract and soon we’ll start seeing the bears looking for trash left out by irresponsible residents. Last summer there was a pack of coyotes following a very large black bear on Knox ave. When the bear left to look for another garbage can, the coyotes would swoop in and pick over what was left. The bears, and to a degree, the coyotes are no longer afraid of humans. I see them both in the early morning hours as well as midday.
I love being this close to wildlife but when there’s a 300 to 400 pound bear in your front yard, while thats cool, it can become some cause for concern.
Aversion techniques, keeping your trash indoors and definetly keep your pets inside and when you do let them out be sure they are on a leash or in a protected area safe from predators. ZZ, bear spray is an excellent solution when walking your furry friend. Is there a store locally that carry’s it? I’ll definetly buy some! Thanks for writing to LTN. Old Long Skiis
So much bad spelling and punctuation on my behalf. Please accept my apology. I didn’t pay much attention in my STHS english class. Sorry Bill Crawford, I had other things on my mind back then. Sex, drugs and rock and roll to name a few.
On a brighter note at least we’re finally getting some snow! Take care, Old… oh hell you know who I am.
@zz-gosh, i don’t know where to begin. Why would ANYONE stand idly by watching their beloved pet get mangled? Last time I walked by Fallen Leaf lake there were oodles of squirrels and chipmunks and ground squirrels, same with the woods by upper truckee marsh, and off pioneer trail, same with my neighborhood, which has an outside cat or two, and small dogs and big dogs AND coyotes(the cats are alert, watchful, and in incredible shape). The people who have small dogs step outside with them, to protect them if need be, not just from coyotes but from birds of prey. By the way, squirrels are arboreal, you won’t find many, if any, in a meadow. Mice, gophers, voles,…those you WILL find in a meadow and most people are glad to have the ‘yotes, hawks and owls eating them. Coyotes are necessary for the health of the forests, meadows, marshes and, dare i say it, neighborhoods that are plopped down in the middle of them. Good luck managing the packs-kill the alpha female and all the females come into estrus. Kill the alpha male and it’s a f***-fest till one asserts dominance and becomes chosen by the a-fem…or the pack disperses into the adjacent packs, which then expand their territories. Managing wildlife is not like disneyland. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
It is not illegal to kill any coyote at any time of the year, check the DNR website and you can confirm that.
I own no weapons of any kind. I’m only trying to explain why someone else may have perceived the need to take actions into their own hands. I don’t know the real reasons why they took action I’m just speculating, but the reason was real to them.
Black bears don’t kill every other animal that they are able to kill in their territory. They are nothing more than large rodents looking for food. Some animals kill for what they need, a coyote pack would kill 10 pets a night to feed the whole pack if they could. The coyote is a wonderful animal, they are also one of the most aggressive, bold and efficient killing machines evolution has produced.
I have been stalked by coyotes while backcountry skiing with one other friend and his dog. The three coyotes followed us up on top of the Sherwin ridge in Mammoth Lakes and their behavior was consistent with a hunting animal they were shepherding us into a direction they wanted us to go. We got out of the area quickly by putting on our skis and dropping over the ridge. I have never seen that dog as scared as that day.
One of my employees without any pets with her has been stalked on her walk to work in the village more then once early in the morning.
I know a person that was walking their dog only to look up and see a whole pack running at top speed towards them, the pack of about 10 animals was on its way to a kill and they ran at full speed right up to the person and half of the pack passed on one side of him while the other half went around the other side of him. This person was convinced at the time he was being attacked by the pack. They no longer go out on walks near their own house…
There has been very few coyote attacks on healthy humans, but if while being stalked an alone a person were to trip and fall and get knocked out the pack would most likely eat a human just as they do eat dead human carcasses they find in the woods. Ask any search and rescue person where coyotes are in numbers, when they recover human bodies they died in the wooded areas most have been eaten, or partially eaten by coyotes after they died.
If you don’t know how many pets have been attacked and killed by local packs of coyotes this summer alone then check the archive of this site and you will find the stories of what happened. If you don’t understand why you can’t step into the middle of a pack of wild coyotes to save your own pet then you don’t fully understand what manic state takes over the wild animals when a pack makes a kill. Go ask that question to those people that had their pets killed this summer.
Some coyotes are a necessary part of an ecosystem, too many become a nuisance, eliminate their sources of food and then move further into the neighborhoods for easy pet prey.
There is a problem and people need to gain awareness of this problem before a proper solution can be planned out which will create a balance and healthy life in the wild for those animals.
Lodi street is not the wilderness.
47 pages of problems all across the country, those are facts.
It’s a coyote. People on here act like it was a toddler. I bet these same people would be apoplectic if that coyote had mauled a child, demanding action, wondering why “something” wasn’t done sooner to prevent such a senseless tragedy, calling for an investigation.
But they won’t because it’s a dead coyote. Get over it.
argueably the most important piece of the puzzle in hunting is “knowledge of local conditions”.
i guess you never can tell where that knowledge is going to come from.thanks
this looks like a good place for a pro tourney. habituated coyotes come to an electronic caller in full stupid mode.
My dog has a tapeworm that I dont want to harm and would like to release back in the wild. Is the lake too cold this time of year? Would I be better off waiting until spring or should I drive down to the bay area now and find a warmer pond?
These articles help me find good coyote hunting spots.
It’s no wonder society is so out of whack. It used to be that reporting the news was unbiased and had every detail fact checked. So sad that it is now written at barely a fourth grade level. I guess the current federal administration should extend the minimum wage requirement to the local news reporters. Maybe we’ll get a better clientele of professional writers.
Not true, DS. You just didn’t know how slanted your news was before because you didn’t have so many sources to check. Or the ability for so many different people to express their views.
The resources for fact checking are the same now as it was then. The only difference was the pride in labor to actually do the work.
Today’s society is all about the right here and now, without the ability to slow down and do it right. The news is leading its populous by the nose the same way, publishing hearsay without fact just for sensationalism, ratings and political agenda, then standing behind the first amendment when they get it wrong.
So I guess the next step for this paper is to publish that the missing coyote was abducted by aliens, the holes were not inflicted by a earth bound weapon, but some sort of exploritory probing.
But then again, once this prolifically growing coyote pack sets out and snatches up somebodies toddler out of the front yard, it’ll be a catastrophe. Then come hell or high water, everyone will be up in arms to systematically eliminate these baby killers.
Slanted is an understatement, Reed tried to publicly hang Setnor with no evidence behind her story, she obviously had her mind made up before she ever wrote the story, credibility will be an issue with this website and publisher in the future.
Time to get a life people.
Comments are off.
LTN staff