Texas Park Closed After Coyote Bites Children

The city of Arlington, Texas, has closed a park after a coyote bit two children on separate occasions.

In a statement on Tuesday, officials said Parkway Central Park, located near Route 30 in northern Arlington—which sits between Dallas and Fort Worth—would remain closed to the public on Wednesday while Animal Services workers locate and tranquilize the wild animal.

They said the first biting incident in the park occurred on Saturday, after which Animal Services set a trap and patrolled the park. However, they were not able to trap the coyote.

Then, on Tuesday evening, a second child was bitten “by what is believed to be the same coyote.” The park was closed while “Animal Services officers and police officers responded to tranquilize and trap the coyote, but the animal could not be located.”

City officials said additional traps were set out on Tuesday night and that Animal Services would continue to patrol the area to locate the coyote.

While coyote attacks are rarely lethal, they can cause lacerations to the skin with their teeth and can pass on diseases like rabies.

The statement did not disclose the conditions of the children who were bitten in the park—which is in a residential neighborhood near AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys—nor their ages.

Newsweek approached the City of Arlington via phone and Animal Services by email for comment on Wednesday.

Coyotes have typically been known to attack small animals, sometimes including household pets such as cats and dogs, but can also attack humans. An increase in coyote attacks in recent decades has been attributed by experts to the animals slowly losing their fear of humans as settlements sprawl out into their natural territory.

Between 1977 and 2015, there were an estimated 367 coyote attacks on humans across the U.S.—nearly half of which occurred in California. While 60 percent of the victims were adults, researchers noted that children were found to be at a greater risk of a serious injury.

In September 2022, a man was attacked by coyotes while walking his dogs in Cohasset, Massachusetts. The dog owner had to be taken to hospital, but was later released.

It came after a woman was attacked by a coyote in a restaurant parking lot that July, in Swampscott, also in Massachusetts.

In September 2020, officials at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, advised Marines not to jog at night in the Wallace Creek area after four personnel were attacked, requiring medical treatment.

A day before the first attack in Arlington, a hiker in Rhode Island killed a rabid coyote with his bare hands after being attacked by it.