The Brief

If you feel like there’s been more coyotes around your neighborhood, acting more aggressively, you may be right.

Coyotes have wrapped up their infamous mating season — and now it’s time to cue the cute factor: Coyote pup season is in full swing. And that means some behavioral changes.

What you should know about the season

Coyotes have three biological seasons, said Niamh Quinn, a human-wildlife interactions advisor with the University of California’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources .

There’s breeding season, pup season, and then what she calls the dispersal season, where the young coyotes go off on their own. But during pup season, the coyotes are focused on raising and caring for the babies.

“They're starting to den down, and it’s been shown in certain areas that coyotes can be very aggressive around the den itself at that time,” Quinn said.

In California, coyotes breed primarily between January and March, according to the U.S. Forest Service . Their litters, which can be about five to six pups each, are born between March and May. Some packs may start earlier in the year, she said. For example, her team saw dens being dug out as early as December in Orange County.

But what most coyotes are doing now is beginning to raise those babies. That typically lasts until September.

During this time, the adult coyotes have more mouths to feed.

Understanding coyote behavior

Coyotes are cooperative breeders, meaning that the pack gets involved to help raise the young. That creates a lot of activity around the dens.

“The thing about a coyote den is that you could be stood right on top of one and not even know it's there,” Quinn said. “Like they're quite small openings.”

All a coyote needs is to be able to go in, turn around and come back out. They’re often found in the open spaces around us, like nature reserves, nurseries, railway lines and on Southern California Edison’s easement land.

But they can show up around parks and even under homes. So while you may not see ones for months, they are almost always nearby in L.A. County . While these animals aren’t strictly nocturnal, they’re most active between dusk and dawn.

Coyote behavior does change in L.A. County’s pup season, Quinn said, but not always. Members of the pack leave the den, but data is mixed on whether it’s a true increase in activity compared to other seasons.

“I would say that probably in L.A., you get a lot of encounters during the pup rearing season,” Quinn said. “Then you probably get like a small peak as well during dispersal when the juveniles are starting to move on.”

While many Southern Californians get rightfully concerned about seeing coyotes — they can and do attack animals and people — others feel we need to learn to co-exist.

Tujunga resident Jason Holmes grew up in the country, which he says gave him a perspective on nature that he’s trying to pass on to his very young daughter.

“We grew up around coyotes, mountain lions … I just think it's really important that people get out in nature. We have a lot of fear where fear doesn’t have to necessarily be,” Holmes said. “[But] now that I have a child, yeah, they’re more of my concern.”

Meanwhile Jerome Agee says the different seasons of their life cycle reminds him of how close L.A. is to the wild. He sees coyotes as just like any other animal.

“We're in their neighborhood. This is their home,” Agee said. “So we got to learn how to get along. Cause you know, they got the right to survive just like we.”

A coyote in Elysian Park.

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Ways to stay safe

There are steps you can take to keep you, your small children and your animals safe.

Coyote encounters can just be a sighting, or an animal or human attack. But it’s less common for coyotes to bite humans — usually they go after small animals, like cats and dogs.

“If you don't want your cat eaten by a coyote, you don’t let your cat outside,” Quinn said.

Dogs are a little different because they can be attacked on leashes too. It’s a smart idea to minimize the length of your leash, and of course, don’t take your dog off the leash in public.

If you do encounter a coyote, one option is to scare them off with a loud noise. Some well-used dog walking areas have home-made shakers on hand, like this one in East Pasadena.

A home-made shaker to warn away coyotes

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You can learn more in our guide to living safely with our coyote neighbors .

See where coyotes are near you

If you’re curious where coyotes have been reported near you, check out locations below, updated with the University of California’s Coyote Cacher data as of April 24.

A few caveats to keep in mind: Reports don’t represent the total amount of coyote sightings this year. The service relies on people submitting individual reports, which can only be done in English.

People can always elect to report coyotes to other places, like a county service, or not report them at all. So an empty spot on the map does not necessarily mean there are no coyotes near you.

As a kid growing up in Las Vegas, Cleto Escobedo and his best friend delighted in playing pranks together.

"We kind of had the same sense of humor," he recalled in a 2022 oral history interview with Texas Tech University . "We'd mess with people on the Strip, and if it'd rain, maybe we'd go splash people with puddles in my car when I was a teenager."

And they watched a lot of comedy. "We were big David Letterman fans when we were kids," he said.

Just like their idol, his friend, Jimmy Kimmel, grew up to host a late-night TV show. And Kimmel delivered a heartfelt monologue Tuesday night paying tribute to Escobedo.

"Late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special, who was much too young to go," Kimmel said, near tears. He did not disclose the cause of Escobedo's death, but thanked doctors and nurses at UCLA Medical Center for taking care of his friend.

"Cleto was a phenomenal saxophone player from a very young age," Kimmel said. "He was a child prodigy. He would get standing ovations in junior high school, if you can imagine that."

Escobedo grew up in a musical household. His father worked for years as a professional musician, and the younger Escobedo first started studying saxophone in sixth grade, because his father already had an instrument at home. He enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, played in bar bands — "anything from country to Phil Collins," he said in the oral history — and in 1990, successfully auditioned to tour with superstar Paul Abdul.

"Through her, I got a record deal with Virgin Records," he said. "It was kind of a Latin-y, pop, R&B record. It was kind of like the Latin Explosion record a little too early. I did some stuff in Spanglish, but it was more like a pop, funk-y kind of stuff."

Although the album did not lead to a solo career, Escobedo worked steadily, performing with musicians such as Luis Miguel and Marc Anthony. Kimmel hired Escobedo's band, Cleto and the Cletones, to back him up when ABC launched Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2003. The band included Escobedo's father, and the two, Kimmel said, were particularly proud to be what they believed to be the only father-son team performing together on late night television.

"Everyone loves Cleto," Kimmel said in his monologue. "Everyone here in this show is devastated by this. It's just not fair. He was the nicest, most humble, kind and always funny person."

Kimmel expressed sympathy for Escobedo's surviving family members, including his parents, wife and two children. He signed off with the words: "Cherish your friends."
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Long Beach will look for ways to boost police presence in Belmont Shore and better regulate alcohol-sellers citywide, but officials will not seek to impose a yearlong midnight curfew on Second Street bars.

The decision came after a lengthy discussion at a City Council meeting Tuesday night, where Belmont Shore residents said something must be done about intoxicated, unruly crowds that spill over into their neighborhood.

In the past two years, resident Mike Anderson said, a drunk driver crashed through the brick wall guarding his front yard, and both of his adult children had their parked cars damaged by hit-and-run drivers.

In another case, Anderson said he walked out to a car parked in front of his house that was blaring music, and when he asked the two men in the car if they could lower the volume, one flashed a gun and told Anderson to mind his own business.

He was one of more than 20 neighbors and business owners who demanded action from the City Council. The push for a crackdown came after the killing of 32-year-old Jeremy Spears , who police said was in an altercation at a bar before his death. It was the third killing in two years on or near Second Street.

Brandon Webb is seated next to a memorial on La Verne Avenue for his cousin, Jermey Spears, who was shot and killed near Second Street over the weekend in Long Beach, on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.

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In response, the area’s City Councilmember, Kristina Duggan, proposed exploring a temporary midnight curfew for bars, boosting DUI enforcement, studying the cost of reestablishing a Belmont Shore police substation, and targeting public drinking and street vending, which she said encourages people to linger after last call.

Duggan said she was on Second Street from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. last Friday and saw “at least 20” people with open alcohol containers. She pressed Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish on why his officers didn’t cite people for public drinking that night.

Hebeish promised to look into it, but said officers cite at their own discretion.

Duggan said the widespread pubic drinking, unregulated street vending and prevalence of people blaring loud music have led to “unmanaged crowds of intoxicated people in public spaces for extended periods, creating opportunities for conflict.”

She proposed a yearlong curfew for any businesses that sell alcohol along Second Street while the city works out a longer-term plan, but she agreed to scrap that idea when it received pushback. City staff, she said, told her it would take months to implement, and several City Council members said any plan needed to apply citywide, not just on Second Street.

“You’re right — and your residents have shared here — Belmont shore is a special place, but the truth is our entire city is also a special place,” District 8 Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk said.

She said gun violence was not isolated to Belmont Shore, pointing out that there have been 11 homicides in the city’s northern police division this year compared to one in its eastern division.

“Our response to this can’t be piecemeal,” she said. “We can not be siloed in how we respond.”

Ultimately, the City Council voted unanimously, directing City Manager Tom Modica to report back to the City Council in 45 days on the feasibility of increased DUI patrols, adding more police officers during high-traffic hours and increased enforcement against public drinking and unpermitted street vendors.

Modica will also return in 90 days with the findings of how the city can better regulate alcohol-related establishments and smoke shops citywide.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Duggan said she was “disappointed” by the changes; she hoped to focus on the specific issues along Second Street, which presents a unique regulatory challenge because many of its longstanding bars are grandfathered in under old rules that give them more leeway.

Meanwhile, the four bars in Belmont Shore that currently stay open until 2 a.m. — Shannon’s Bayshore Saloon, Dogz Bar & Grill, Legends Restaurant & Sports Bar and Panama Joe’s — have agreed to voluntarily close each night at midnight.

The bars plan to resume “normal operations” after Dec. 7, said John Edmond, a spokesman hired by the bars. Their owners are exploring implementing universal safety measures and staggered closing times to mitigate some of the safety concerns, Edmond said.

The House of Representatives is expected to approve a funding bill on Wednesday that would bring an end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

The measure, which extends funding levels for much of the government through Jan. 30, also includes a trio of appropriation bills that would fully fund some federal programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through Sept. 30, 2026. Payments for SNAP, which provides food assistance to nearly 42 million people, have been locked in a court fight as a result of the shutdown.

The Senate approved the legislation late Monday , with seven Democrats and one Independent joining most Republicans. The bill includes a provision to reverse the layoffs the Trump administration imposed during the shutdown.

Most Democrats on Capitol Hill angrily denounced the deal because it failed to address the central issue prompting the standoff — how to address health care subsidies that are expiring at the end of the year.

As part of the compromise, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to hold a vote by mid-December on legislation Democrats will craft to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Some Republicans agree Congress needs to do something to head off steep premium increases for those relying on the subsidies, but it's unclear there are enough GOP votes to pass a bill through the chamber. Even if a deal comes together in the next few weeks, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has declined to guarantee a vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., attends a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday.

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New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a moderate who helped broker the deal with Thune, told reporters on Monday that the shutdown increased political pressure on the GOP to negotiate some solution on health care.

"If the Republicans don't come to the table, if Donald Trump, who claims he can make a deal, is not willing to say to Speaker Johnson, 'you need to have a vote, you need to get something done,' then come next election, in the midterms, the American people are going to hold them accountable and we are going to continue to make this an issue."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., panned the deal shortly before the Senate passed it, and urged House Democrats to vote no.

"We're not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of the American people," Jeffries said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference Monday on Capitol Hill.

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Jeffries and other opponents of the deal argue the results of last week's elections , which featured big Democratic wins in gubernatorial contests and other local elections, sent a signal that voters backed the shutdown strategy, and wanted action on health care.

Hill Republicans maintain that flight delays due to staffing shortages and disruption in government services over several weeks will harm Democrats who blocked bills to reopen the government. But President Trump suggested after GOP candidates were defeated last week that the shutdown harmed the party.

With the midterm elections a year away it's unclear just how far the longest shutdown on record will factor into voters' decisions, especially if concerns about the economy persist.
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