Dancing with coyotes
As I start this article, I can't help but wish we could go back in time and do things in such a way that there would be no need to even consider the possibility of trapping and killing the coyotes from Stanley Park in Vancouver, or anywhere else for that matter.
As I start this article, I can't help but wish we could go back in time and do things in such a way that there would be no need to even consider the possibility of trapping and killing the coyotes from Stanley Park in Vancouver, or anywhere else for that matter.
Coyote and leg hold trap Fur Bearers Defenders
In case you haven't heard about it, forty five people reported being attacked by coyotes in Stanley Park over the last nine months, some of them having to be hospitalized.
Now, this is not usual coyote behavior. Coyotes are usually timid and they will naturally avoid contact with humans unless they are encouraged to do so, with food. Then they will not only lose their healthy self-preserving fear of humans but could show even bold and demanding behavior. So it is a no-brainer why coyotes in the park would become such a problem.
Coyotes have been living in urban environments since the beginning, and even before, as cities have been created in their natural environment. So, this is why it is fair to say that we have invaded their habitat and not the other way around. In many many decades attacks on people by coyotes have been very rare, although we can not say that it has been the same the other way around. Coyotes live in mostly natural areas and urban parks across North America. Cities keep growing and invading natural ecosystems and it is vital that we learn how to coexist with what the Native Americans called the First People, as our subsistence is all interconnected.
Coyotes eat small mammals, fruits and insects. So culling or 'eliminating' them not only is ineffective but carries consequences,certainly not beneficial to humans. They are cleaners, and keep rodent populations under control which has an impact on all the species coexisting in that environment.
The singer Bryan Adams made a public statement through social media (Twitter) to say, “Culling of coyotes in Stanley Park? Consider the knock on effect by removing a species from its natural habitat. Look what happened when they wiped out the wolves in Yellowstone. They had to re-wild them back to balance the ecosystem.”
And as science has shown once culled, it may not take long to re-populate available areas. So in this case as Lesley Fox, from the Fur Bearers organization has explained, it is estimated that in about one year people in Stanley Park or anywhere else in a similar situation, could be facing the exact same problem unless we address the cause.
So 'exterminating them' fortunately is not only not possible in this context in the long term but it would creates much bigger problems than solutions. At this point of our history insisting on considering wild-animals as vermin is not only irresponsible but it shows that we humans have a tough time accepting and learning from our own mistakes looking at the chaos and cascade effects that eliminating one species from their ecosystems has caused once and again all around the planet.
In order to have different results
we need to do things differently
What could have been done differently in Stanley Park to prevent this problem?
Enforcing regulations which prohibit feeding wild-life.
Setting signs to let people know and remind those regulations and also how to report if sighting someone feeding wild-life.
Setting closed garbage containers so animals can't eat garbage.
Reminding people to use the designated trails for not disturbing dens so wild-animals can stay away from people.
Using aversion techniques to encourage coyotes to stay away from people, when the first signs of habituation are detected.
MYTH
IF YOU FEED COYOTES THEY WON'T EAT YOUR CAT or DOG
Different cities have programs, so you can find out if there is a program dedicated to urban wildlife in your city and contact them if you have observed a potentially dangerous situation with a coyote or other wild animal. Poison should never be the answer, not only for humane reasons, (a dead by poison is extremely painful) but also environmentally, poison is a contaminant that will affect more than the targeted individual or species, and the risk includes domestic animals.
In Edmonton there is the Urban Coyote Project which depends on the University of Alberta. This project has been working with a group of volunteers in different neighborhoods of the city where coyotes have been seen. They have successfully applied a simple aversion technique for encouraging coyotes to stay away from humans. This technique consists in throwing weighted tennis balls towards the coyote (not at the coyote). You can find out more in their website. At the end of this article you will find different links with educational material.
Other aversion methods
Noisemakers: pots and pans, shaking a can with stones or anything you have handy to make noise, including your own voice.
Projectiles thrown towards (not at) the coyote such as weighted tennis balls, sticks, clumps of dirt.
During warm weather you can use water, water balloons.
Summarizing
It is vital that we humans learn to co-exist with wildlife not only for the preservation of those species but for our own preservation. Understanding our interconnection and interdependence is the key to restore and also to stop the destructive behavior towards Nature. Each of us can play an active and very important role in our day to day lives with seemingly small acts.
If you would like to learn more about coyotes the Bay Nature Institute is screening online the documentary Don't feed the coyotes, on Tuesday 21st of September 2021, you can register through this link:
About this documentary:
After a century of extirpation, coyotes returned to the green spaces of San Francisco in the early 2000s. Twenty years later, a thriving population of Canis latrans resides in the city’s parks and forests. The upcoming documentary don’t feed the coyotes observes several years in the intertwined lives of these urban animals. It centers around a three-year-old coyote, fondly named Scout, and her territorial challenger, the scientifically dubbed 15F. Chronicling their lives through two starkly different researchers observing them, it's about humans, the natural world, and the lines we've drawn between the two. And of course, not feeding the coyotes.
Following the screening of the film, Bay Nature will host a Q&A with filmmaker Nick Stone Schearer alongside Bay Area self-taught naturalist, Janet Kessler, and wildlife ecologist with Presidio Trust, Jonathan Young.
Organizations in Canada
In Edmonton, Alberta
In British Columbia
In Ontario
Huge Thanks to Tail Blazers Gateway for its commitment not only to dogs and cats' health care but to the conservation of Nature and also for supporting this blog!
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