Irvine police this week debuted a new tactic for dealing with coyotes in local neighborhoods: paintball guns.

For about four hours Thursday evening, a pair of animal services officers carrying bright yellow sidearms patrolled Irvine’s Portola Springs neighborhood, where they squeezed off rounds of paint-filled pellets at coyotes who ventured too close to civilization.

The paintballs are part of a plan to scare away the wild animals that residents say have hunted small pets and even aggressively approached children.

In May, a 3-year-old girl was attacked by a coyote in a neighborhood in east Irvine while she and her mother and twin sister were walking the family dog.

In July, Portola Springs residents started a Neighborhood Watch-style program to try to keep coyotes off their streets.

“We’re looking for those coyotes that are causing a potential problem to humans,” said Irvine police Lt. John Condon, who went along Thursday to help introduce residents to what was happening.

Coyotes are common across Orange County, but recent confrontations in and around Portola Springs have police worried.

“This year, there have been several reported incidents of coyotes in Irvine approaching and engaging children,” according to a post on the Police Department’s Facebook page. “Recently, we received a report of a coyote biting the lower leg of an adult.”

For years, police have advised residents to “haze” coyotes when they run across them. That essentially means yelling, screaming, clapping hands — anything to scare the animals, Condon said. But it hasn’t always worked.

“They’re becoming more and more comfortable around humans, so the idea here is to raise the level of intensity of what we’re doing so it does put that fear back into them,” Condon said.

The paintball guns appeared to do the trick, he said.

During Thursday’s patrol, two coyotes ran away when officers fired on them.

One was in front of a home when the paint started flying; the other was sitting in a park.

“He wasn’t moving,” Condon said of the coyote in the park. “He wasn’t really concerned about people until we got up on him.”

The coyotes that seem too comfortable around humans are the ones officers intend to target, Condon said.

“It’s not like we’re hunting up in the brush or things like that,” he said.

According to Condon, Irvine turned to paintball guns because officials believe they are a more humane alternative to trapping the animals. Those that are captured must be killed because state law prohibits relocating them, he said.

Irvine’s new tactic is common in some other areas with coyote problems and is recognized as an option by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, according to police.

Paint-toting officers will be making more rounds in Irvine, but the department is still deciding when and where.

“In order for hazing to really be effective, you can’t just do it once and walk away,” Condon said.

In the meantime, police cautioned residents not to take paintballs into their own hands — that would be illegal, according to the department.

Civilians, Condon said, should limit their hazing to making noise and throwing sticks and rocks.