A family living in Los Angeles, United States, said their toddler was attacked by a coyote over the weekend, with the father managing to chase the animal away while screaming at it in Hebrew.
The Eliyahu family from the Woodlands Hills neighborhood said the coyote lunged at the daughter, with the father, Ariel, managing to rescue the child while she was being bitten and dragged.
Coyote attacks Eliyahu family's daughter
(KTLA5 news)
Ariel said he had brought his daughter home from preschool, pulled up the driveway and let his daughter out. As he turned to close the car, the coyote, lurking behind them, attacked the daughter. Ariel, immediately alerted by his daughter's screams, came to her rescue, yelling and cursing in Hebrew.
The animal immediately let go of the toddler and ran to a safe distance away from the father, who immediately picked his daughter up and threw a rock at the coyote, making it run away.
"He didn't see the coyote, he thought she fell," said Shira, the mother. "So he ran over and then he saw the coyote. She had a lot of scratches on her left leg, one of them was deep, actually. We had to go to the emergency room to get her a rabies shot. It was dragging her, so her face is a little bruised."
When the news crew arrived at the location to film a report on the incident, the coyote showed up as well. Ariel and another man from the neighborhood chased it away back into the bushes. The Eliyahu said they are fed up with the constant howling of coyotes near their home.
Patrick Foye of the California Wildlife Information Department said there's a search being conducted for the coyote, to match it with the DNA residue he left as he was biting the toddler. "Coyotes are a big problem in this area," he said. "We've had reports of them going after pets as well."
Seven people and pets were subject to coyote attacks in the past year. The two main recommendations to avoid such instances is to build a higher fence around your home and avoid feeding the animals, since it is more likely to make the coyotes associate humans with food.