War in Encino: How a Group Chat Exploded Over Neighborhood Coyotes

Wendy the coyote was euthanized on Tuesday, September 8. For at least a year before that, she had been wandering Studio City with a severely swollen face, earning such adoration from Valley residents that press reports frequently described her as “beloved.”

In August, Wendy was regularly in the news as an organization called Wildlife Care of Southern California worked to bring her into care — multiple outlets, including the California Post and People, inevitably compared her to "Jimothy," the famous Seattle raccoon with a spinal deformity. Somebody turned her into a cryptocurrency.

After Wendy was finally captured, a veterinarian determined that “there was no surgery or treatment capable of restoring normal function,” according to Wildlife Care. Her death was mourned by thousands on social media. The value of her cryptocurrency spiked 4,300%, then fell.

The veterinary examination also determined a cause of her swelling: She had been shot twice in the head with a pellet gun. That news rippled across the collective conscience of L.A. animal lovers, prompting a search for the perpetrator. A pitbull rescue group put out a $10,000 reward for information leading to the shooter’s arrest and conviction. 

In Encino, the pellet gun revelation spurred a woman named Vanessa Johnston to particular action: Johnston, an entertainment industry executive and standup comedian, posted a video to Instagram with the title “DID MY NEIGHBOR SHOOT WENDY THE COYOTE?”

The video, complete with screenshots, laid bare a year-old conflict that erupted in her neighborhood WhatsApp group when a prominent L.A. cookie entrepreneur named Don Croutch discussed the use of pellet guns to deter coyotes. There’s no evidence that Croutch actually did shoot Wendy, and Croutch has denied ever shooting a coyote or shooting at one. But the episode was a block-level distillation of an ongoing showdown in Los Angeles: wildlife and its defenders on one side, domesticated pets and those who love them on the other.