3 Coyotes Killed After 5-Year-Old Girl Attacked at a Calif. Botanical Garden

"She’s expected to recover, she’s going to be okay,” said Patrick Foy, captain of the law enforcement division at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife The recent attack of a young girl at the San Francisco Botanical Garden has resulted in three coyotes being killed by local wildlife authorities

Published Time: 02.07.2024 - 21:31:09 Modified Time: 02.07.2024 - 21:31:09

"She’s expected to recover, she’s going to be okay,” said Patrick Foy, captain of the law enforcement division at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife

The recent attack of a young girl at the San Francisco Botanical Garden has resulted in three coyotes being killed by local wildlife authorities.

A 5-year-old girl was attending day camp at a botanical garden located in Golden Gate Park when she was bitten by a coyote on Friday, June 28, forcing officials to temporarily close the area, SFGATE reported.

“There were puncture wounds associated with a coyote bite,” Patrick Foy, captain of the law enforcement division at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the outlet on July 1. “She was transported to the hospital. She’s expected to recover, she’s going to be okay.”

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Officials quickly alerted other agencies and took the necess -

ary steps to find the coyote that bit the young girl. “We were successful in getting to the child before any significant cleaning of the bite wounds were done,” Foy told SFGATE. “They used a Q-tip and ran it over the area where the animal punctured the skin.” 

Representatives from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) tell PEOPLE that the “CDFW Wildlife forensic scientists have matched the DNA from the attack victim’s bite wounds to a coyote euthanized over the weekend.”

The United States Agriculture Department (USDA) was then called to the scene and USDA trappers identified the other two coyotes that were in the area at the time of the child’s attack, shooting and killing them, SFGATE reported.

As the young girl continues to recover from her minor injuries, the CDFW was unable to provide a rabies update on the animal that bit her, telling PEOPLE that the “rabies test is not done by our agency and takes several days, so that is not available yet.”

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