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Woman hires trappers to save coyote with neck trapped in tube

Posted at 8:51 AM, May 22, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-22 08:51:40-04

SAN DIEGO – A San Diego woman and her neighbors have been trying to rescue a coyote with tubing stuck around its neck for nearly a month, according to KSWB.

Katie Ryan lives in Rancho Bernardo near the border with Poway. She has been watching a pack of coyotes who live in the green belt behind her home for years. In mid-April, she saw that a female coyote in the pack had a length of landscaper’s tube stuck around its neck. After a month, she says the animal can still move OK, but “you can tell she’s in a lot of discomfort because of the way she’s shaking her neck a lot.”

Ryan has made several attempts to catch the coyote so that she could take it to an animal rescue group in Ramona, but all have failed. Monday she hired a professional animal trapper in a desperate attempt to save the animal, because the tube has cut deeply into her skin, and it will no doubt die if it doesn’t get medical attention soon.

“It’s been a labor of love, not just me but this huge group of people,” Ryan said.  “Tonight’s the night because she is so infected and inflamed, she has got to get help now.”

Ryan has been posting about her efforts to save the coyote on the NEXTDOOR website. The first two attempts to trap the coyote failed, and the animal disappeared for a few days. People from as far away as New York have sent her money to help rescue the coyote, and that’s what she is using to pay for the trapper.

“They don’t just come and drop off a cage. We’re going to discuss a plan,” Ryan said. “But I do have a number of people to wrangle her toward the door and get her in the trap.”

Ryan said she has been watching the coyote at night and early morning, studying her habits.  If all goes as planned, she will be calling the Fund For Animal Wild Life in Ramona to pick up the coyote take her to their property for treatment and rehabilitation.

Ryan said she recently had a heart-to-heart talk with the coyote. “She just stared and stared, and I came out and I looked at her and said, ‘We are getting you help!’”