Coyote captured and destroyed after attack on child

Published 5:00 pm Monday, June 25, 2012

NEHALEM – Wildlife officials trapped and killed a coyote in Nehalem Bay State Park Saturday, following the coyote-related injury of a five-year-old Oregon City girl in the campground the evening of Thursday, June 21.

Although it can’t be confirmed whether the trapped coyote was the same animal that confronted and apparently bit the child, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will continue trapping coyotes in the park and have the animal’s carcass tested for rabies and other diseases.

“Our plan is to get as many of them as we can find out of the park,” said Rick Swart of the ODFW.

No other coyotes were reported to be found or seen in the park over the weekend.

The attack, reported to Oregon State Police at approximately 9:30 p.m., occurred while the girl and her family were walking along a trail that leads from the beach, where they had watched the sunset, to the campground. The girl’s family said the coyote confronted them, and, while it remains unconfirmed that she was actually bitten, the animal appears to have caused a puncture wound on her back.

She was transported to Providence Seaside Hospital, where she was treated and released, then went with her parents to a Portland-area hospital for precautionary rabies vaccinations.