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Coyote roaming California neighborhood is put to sleep By MARK FREEMAN SCOTT VALLEY, Calif . -- State game wardens have euthanized a year-old, partially domesticated coyote that was roaming a small Scott Valley neighborhood where the animal had some residents fearful for their children's safety. A biologist and warden captured the coyote in the Etna area Friday, took it to a remote location and killed it with a chemical injection described as painless. The animal roamed freely in a neighborhood but clearly tended to stay near one particular house, authorities said. Authorities believe the coyote was transported as a pup from Oregon to the Scott Valley area, but wardens have so far been unable to identify who did so, an agency biologist said. While possessing a wild animal like a coyote is a misdemeanor in California, and transporting one across state lines is also a crime, California Fish and Game wardens have been unable to make a case and their investigation is closed. "Nobody in that area would claim responsibility or ownership of the critter, so it's pretty hard to do something," says Tim Burton, a senior biologist and the agency's regional wildlife management supervisor. A neighbor reported the loss of some chickens and told state game wardens that he suspected the coyote. Another neighbor expressed fear for the safety of nearby children. The fish and game department says one report details how 50 human attacks by coyotes have been reported in California over the past decade. The report states that most attacks were in urban or suburban areas where coyotes had lost their natural fear of man because people fed them or because they survived on food sources close to humans. Before killing the coyote, officials tried to find the animal a new home. EAGLE POINT -- Oregon State Police are looking for the person or people who illegally shot a doe deer early Sunday near Eagle Point, took two cuts of meat and left the rest of the carcass for waste. A reward of up to $250 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible. The poaching incident took place in the early morning hours Sunday in the driveway of a residence on the 4700 block of Brownsboro Highway. The unknown suspect or suspects shot the doe and removed only the deer's backstraps before leaving the rest of the meat to spoil, the OSP said. Investigators said the deer was shot in the neck at close range, probably between 4 and 6 a.m., OSP Senior Trooper Pat McNeilly said. The reward is being offered through the Turn In Poachers, or TIP, program. The program is a joint venture by the OSP and the Oregon Hunters Association to find and punish poachers. Anyone with information on this case or other poaching cases is urged to telephone the OSP at 776-6111 or the statewide TIP hot line at 1-800-452-7888. ... And anyone in the Northern California area who shows up at a local doctor with a particularly bad stomach ache -- or happens to have created one of the best private trout ponds in the region -- better beware. California game wardens and police are investigating a rare burglary case in which 140 brood trout swimming off the effects of a tranquilizing chemical were stolen from a state spawning house at Eagle Lake. Also stolen Friday was a jar of a fish-tranquilizing chemical as well as commercial fish nets used to collect trout at Eagle Lake, in North-Central California's Great Basin. The lake is home to some of the best fly-fishing for trophy rainbow trout in all of Northern California, which could have a year's worth of fingerling trout plants now at jeopardy from the theft. The California Department of Fish and Game hopes to capture another 150 trout at Eagle Lake this week to replace the stolen fish, which were a back-up source for the 2.5 million Eagle Lake trout eggs now incubating at a Redding, Calif., hatchery, authorities said. The agency has a spawning house half-submerged into Pine Creek near its mouth at Eagle Lake. The house is used to hold the brood trout, net and chemicals used to catch and spawn the big Eagle Lake trout. The trout were being held there because they were treated April 6 with the chemical tricaine methane sulfonate -- commonly called MS222 -- used by hatchery workers to keep fish woozy and calm while being handled for spawning. California public-health laws require that fish treated with MS222 must be held for 21 days before release. The delay allows the chemical to work through the fish's system before any angler could catch and eat the treated fish. Anyone with information that might lead to the arrest of the burglars is urged to telephone the agency's CalTIP hot line at 1-888-DFG-CALTIP, or the Lassen County Sheriff's Department at 530-257-6121. Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA