An unsettling sight: Someone strung dead coyotes along a fence near Oakdale

A woman driving to Oakdale over the weekend came across a grotesque scene: seven dead coyotes hung by their snouts on a wire fence along 26 Mile Road north of Woodward Reservoir.

She stopped and saw blue hay bale twine was wrapped around the coyote’s canine teeth and tied to the fence.

“What kind of demented mind would do that?” the woman said.

The woman named Dee, who asked only to be identified by her first name for fear of retaliation, first saw the carcass of one coyote on the fence Friday. But when she drove by again on Monday it was still there and joined by six others.

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There are very few restrictions on killing coyotes and nothing illegal about displaying their carcasses in that manner, but Patrick Foy, Captain of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Law Enforcement Division, agrees that it is “highly offensive.”

“What is likely happening with this situation is there are people who think that if they kill a coyote and hang it on some fence or tree it will serve as a warning to other coyotes to not cross that line, which is entirely false thinking,” he said.

People most often kill coyotes to protect livestock, some do it for their pelts and even fewer to eat.

There is cattle on the property where the coyotes were hung but the owner said neither she nor her tenants know anything about who killed the coyotes or hung them there. She also said they haven’t had any issues with coyotes harming the cattle.