A $1,000 reward was offered Tuesday by Project Coyote for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the sniper who fatally shot a coyote in Silver Lake.

The apparent act of vigilantism reportedly occurred last month on Fernwood Avenue in a residential neighborhood not far from Griffith Park. The incident was reported to authorities by Mike Parson, who was out walking his dog.

Parson told police he heard “a loud thump,” according to an article Friday in the Los Angeles Times, and then noticed a coyote lying in the street in front of his parked truck. An unknown sniper had killed the animal.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Animal Cruelty Task Force and the city’s Department of Animal Services are both investigating. No suspects have been identified. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD Animal Cruelty Task Force at 213-486-0450.

Randi Feilich, Project Coyote’s Southern California representative, said the national nonprofit organization hopes someone will come forward.

“Someone somewhere knows something,” Feilich said in an interview Tuesday.

Coyotes have become prominent in the news as the wild predators have increasingly taken up residence in cities and residential neighborhoods nationwide. While their usual diet spans the spectrum from rodents to rabbits and fruits to vegetables, it is the snatching of pets, mostly cats but also small dogs, that has unnerved Southern California residents in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

Feilich testified last week before the Los Angeles City Animal Welfare Committee in support of the city’s Animal Services’ proposed plan that leans solely on coexistence and community education measures, rejecting the use of lethal responses such as trapping that several other cities, including Torrance and Long Beach, have now begun to use in more severe neighborhood conflicts.

Derek Brown, assistant general manager of the Department of Animal Services, said Tuesday there is no new information on the coyote killing. He could not disclose other details about the case, such as the kind of gun used, because of the ongoing investigation.

“The shooting of this coyote in a residential Los Angeles neighborhood is not only illegal, but also an act of animal cruelty putting people and other animals in danger,” said Camilla Fox, founder and executive director of Project Coyote, in a news release. “Such reckless and dangerous behavior should not be tolerated.”

Feilich believes it’s unlikely, however, that other residents will follow suit.

“I think most people out there wouldn’t condone the shooting of wildlife (based on) the feedback we’ve gotten,” she said. “This was just an innocent animal out looking for food and water and trying to protect its young because it’s pup season. It’s reprehensible.”