, Frans van Heerden, Pexels
Coyote
“A community makes a conscious decision whether they want to live in celebration or conflict. And, it’s very, very simple to truly co-exist with wildlife,” shared Lesley Sampson, Founding Executive Director of Coyote Watch Canada (CWC) during an interview with Oakville News.
Coyotes play a valuable role in our ecosystem. The next time you see a coyote running down the street with a cat in its mouth, consider whether it may already have been dead from a run-in with a dog, bird of prey, or a car.
Sampson maintains that “there’s an aspect of us as human beings that we have guilt when an animal of ours, a family pet, is harmed and we probably weren’t doing the most responsible thing. We want something to pay and that something is coyotes.”
She wants people to understand that they are part of an amazing ecosystem and that wildlife doesn’t understand fences as boundaries.
Little dogs, cats, and elderly animals are vulnerable even in fenced-in yards. Sampson particularly frowns on doggie doors. People need to know when their loved one is outside because fences are not escape proof.
She notes that bird feeders, and the seed that falls to the ground, attract rats and all manner of rodents. That, in turn, brings coyote, fox or birds of prey to yards putting pets at peril.
Sampson said it’s not unusual to find people leaving food at playgrounds, parks and on trails. This puts the entire community in jeopardy by creating hotspots.
It’s important to know that if there isn’t enough food where a coyote lives, then they will move on to an area with better food sources.
Feeding coyotes not only disrupts their natural foraging and hunting behaviour, it impacts their health. High carbohydrate foods replacing their natural diet means they’re not getting all the vitamins, fat and protein they need. That sets up the community for coyotes that are sick.
Students at Oakville Trafalgar High School fed Blondie, a male coyote, each day at lunch time during the 2015/16 school year. Blondie soon lost his fear of people and became aggressive.
Following community information meetings, the feeding stopped. OMHS then used humane hazing to restore Blondie’s natural aversion to people.
Sampson came to know Blondie when the den he had used for four years was destroyed by construction. At the time, he was looking for a safe place to house his two pups.
Blondie and his family eventually settled in culvert on a busy street. Sampson was called in to help inform and reassure the community that everyone could co-exist.
She worked extensively with the town and residents partnering on education, outreach and training to ensure negative interactions wouldn’t happen.
Sampson explained that any dog is a threat regardless of size because coyotes see it as a predator capable of snatching a pup. The community response was nothing less than amazing.
The neighbourhood learned to keep their dogs on leash and to pick up small dogs whenever they saw Blondie or any coyote. They also learned that retractable leashes don’t give the best control over dogs and can actually lead to the encounter triggering a negative coyote response.
Sampson was educating around the seasonal milestone known as denning -- birthing and nursing pups – when coyote parents are more cautious.
Coyotes may appear to escort dog walkers away from the den or bark to scare them off. But it’s important to remember that coyotes don’t want to fight any dog.
These best practices not only work during denning, they work for other coyote encounters as well.
