Shocking video shows a pack of coyotes prowling a West Los Angles neighborhood and preying on pets as residents warn the sightings are becoming more frequent. 

The video from a home security camera last week captured the moment the coyotes crept through the area; at one point, the animal can be seen attacking and killing a cat — walking off with the feline in its mouth. 

“I hate to hear about cats or dogs, or little dogs, or little cats,” West LA resident Gale Barnum told CBS News. “It just hurts.”

The same security camera captured a dog and its owner walking in the area just moments later. 

West LA residents told the outlet that coyote sightings have become a common occurrence, in large part to the weather and being forced out from the fires. 

“That’s all pushing them into areas of human habitation. They don’t want to be here any more than we want them here,” Brad Artson, another West LA resident, said. 

Residents are calling on the city to step up and help remove the wild animals from the area, as it poses a safety risk for their furry friends and young children who enjoy playing outside. 

“I do hope that the city and the state are doing what they can to find them and then humanely send them to places where they can just live their lives far away from us,” Artson told the outlet. 

The fear isn’t unwarranted: A few years ago a Ring camera captured the harrowing moment a coyote attempted to drag a small child away in broad daylight in Woodland Hills, KTLA reported. 

A family in Orange County faced a similar problem this year with coyotes killing seven of their beloved goats.

Despite a humane attempt at deterring the animals from their home, Steve and Karen Blume, who live on a one-acre property in Nellie Gail Ranch in Laguna Hills, are being sued by their HOA for raising the backyard fence beyond the community’s six-foot height limit without first getting approval.

Which begs the question from residents like Barnum: “They don’t belong here, and how do we get rid of them?” she told CBS.

While California promotes nonlethal and preventive approaches to getting rid of coyotes, like ensuring food is secure and making yourself larger to scare away them away, in Utah they have a much harsher method: paying citizens to kill them. 

Since 2012, Utah has offered hunters and trappers $50 for each coyote jaw or scalp they bring to state wildlife officers, KTLA reported.

There are as many as 750,000 wild coyotes living in California, according to the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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