Coyotes (and other wildlife)

Over the years, the area in which our condo HOA is located has seen an increase in the coyote population. While they've always been around, they have become much more numerous, and there have been several attacks on pets in our city. I've seen them a couple of times myself on our property, and others have too. We're in a somewhat forested area with lots of prey for them, and are also near a large wildlife refuge.

How do your HOAs deal with potentially dangerous wildlife? Do you warn residents and visitors, and take additional measures? In our case, we're prohibited by the city from taking any direct action (hunting/trapping/etc); they will only intervene if there is a direct threat. Our property consists of a number of condo buildings with green space and trees throughout.

Along with safety, which is my primary concern, I'm also a bit concerned about liability issues if an attack were to occur on someone's pet, child, etc.

Thanks for the link; it's a good resource. Our city has a similar info page. They used to track coyote sightings, but stopped doing it because they became so common, and the state and county don't track them either so far as I know.

We advise residents to call the county's Animal Control division. We have regular but infrequent sightings of coyotes and bobcats in the neighborhood. The association does not get involved beyond providing residents with the contact information for Animal Control. Like crime, I think there may be liability concerns if the association tries to do too much.

Some excerpts from https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/Wild-Animal as a kind of a starting point to help find the balance of duty and the minimization of legal exposure.

“...Recommendation: Plaintiffs' lawyers will look for every way possible to read into the CC&Rs some sort of duty by the association to protect the health, safety and welfare of its members. To minimize potential liability, associations with wild animal problems should amend their CC&Rs to specifically eliminate any duty or liability related to wild animals. In addition, they should obligate owners to take affirmative steps to protect themselves from wild animals.

Regular Warnings. Finally, boards should regularly warn residents in newsletters to avoid contact with wild animals, not to feed wild animals, to use tamper-proof trash bins, etc. The reminder should make it clear the association is NOT responsible for keeping residents safe and that residents. The Supreme Court in Georgia made similar observations about HOA warnings when an alligator killed a guest. (See The Landings HOA v. Williams.)...”

It's not in our documents to teach the residents about or warn them of the dangers of wild animals, so we don't. As a resident, I put out a flyer explaining the differences in the venom of rattle snakes, but that was just me as a resident.

We don't have Coyotes, but we post signs around our retention pond warning of alligators, I think they also mention snakes.