Santa Clarita, CA Animal Ordinances: Coyote Management (2026)

010(A) makes it unlawful to "feed or in any manner provide food to a nondomesticated rodent or a nondomesticated mammalian predator," except as the chapter otherwise allows. Subsection (B) defines "rodent" to include ground squirrels and "mammalian predators" to include coyote, raccoon, fox and opossum, so the ban reaches the species most associated with human-wildlife conflict in the Santa Clarita Valley's canyon and open-space edges. 020 carves out two narrow exceptions: a person may feed such an animal if they are its owner under a valid permit or certificate issued by the California Department of Fish and Game, or if they are feeding a trapped, injured or unweaned animal during the window between calling animal control and the agency's pickup.

Outside those two situations, leaving out pet food, garbage or intentional feeding stations for coyotes or the other listed species violates the chapter regardless of intent. The Municipal Code's coyote-specific regulation stops there: Title 8 contains no separate ordinance authorizing culls, trapping programs, or a hazing mandate for coyotes; the only codified local tool is this feeding prohibition, adopted by Ordinance 91-29 in 1991 and still in force today.