海角社区官网

Amber was treated by a vet, and after a three-week course of antibiotics seemed to be on the mend. But then she contracted sepsis, likely as a result of bacteria from the coyote bite, Kooner was told, and died as a result.聽

In mourning, and hearing about dozens of other incidents of coyote attacks in the neighbourhood, she founded The Coyote Safety Coalition to help area residents try to work with the city to deal with the problem.聽

Her group has tracked more than 40 coyote attacks since November, including six within four hours on Monday, leading to the deaths of four dogs, she says.聽People around the Fort York and Liberty Village areas are fed up and scared. “This is impacting people’s mental health,” Kooner says of the all-pervasive fear that accompanies just going out of their homes, noting residents encounter coyotes in children’s playgrounds, or on the front lawns of their buildings, or in front of the Wendy’s. “People are terrified.”

At a virtual community meeting Thursday night, local councillor Ausma Malik spoke of the “horror and heartbreak” in her area. Residents in the meeting got something in the way of explanations, but not much in the way of reassurance.

“We’ve been educated to death, since November,” Kooner says. They are ready for solutions.聽

Esther Attard, head of Toronto’s Animal Services division said at the meeting that “all options are being explored” 鈥� including humane relocation and more lethal responses.聽

But here’s the rub: experts at the meeting also said that coyotes are really very hard to trap and maybe even harder to safely relocate. And Attard said that if you kill or move out a population of coyotes, more will just come along to take their place.聽

Indeed, the presence of coyotes in 海角社区官网is not new. There have been periodic stories over the past 15 years of attacks on small dogs, including high-profile pet deaths in The Beach in 2013 and 2009. After one of those deaths, , who has studied coyotes in urban areas extensively. He said they can be a positive thing, providing necessary “ecological services” and even reducing the presence of some diseases among humans. Usually, he told me, people live near coyotes and don’t even know it.聽

But the people downtown right now surely know it. As Malik said, the recent attacks represent an “escalation that is unprecedented.”

At the meeting, Victoria Badham of the 海角社区官网Wildlife Centre outlined the “perfect nightmare” of factors they think have led to the recent wave of coyote attacks. The construction at Ontario Place and other local development projects may have disturbed an existing habitat; it is mating season for coyotes sending them out on the prowl; some people have been feeding coyotes, both attracting them and reducing their fear of humans; and off-leash dogs have attacked coyotes, leading them to view all dogs as potential threats, leading to pre-emptive attacks even on leashed dogs who are with their owners. “This is not natural coyote behaviour,” Badham said.

Expert panellists noted that while the concern is always there, coyotes very rarely attack humans (including children), and that all the recent attacks have been on pets. Still, there have been a lot of them.聽

So what is to be done? Right now the preferred route is “trying to coexist” with the animals, Attard said. The city has implemented staff patrols of downtown parks 鈥� and is adding three new parks and more shifts to the schedule after this week’s reported attacks. They are fixing fences that they think provide routes for coyotes into populated areas. And they are advising people to engage in “aversion conditioning,” which is where the noisemakers and garbage bags come in: whenever anyone sees a coyote, they are supposed to loudly shout at it and walk aggressively toward it 鈥� possibly while flapping a garbage bag to provide visual bulk and added noise 鈥� to scare it away.

Attard insisted this is an approach that has been shown to work. But the thing is that as the name implies, it is a conditioning technique that has to be applied consistently by everyone in the neighbourhood over a period of time to change the coyotes’ behaviour. It is not an in-the-moment defence technique to fend off or avoid an attack.聽

Besides, Kooner says. “Since they told us about the ‘aversion conditioning’ in November, a lot of people have been doing it. They have horns and noisemakers 鈥� they’ve bought vests,” she says. For three months they’ve done it. It isn’t reassuring to hear suggestions they continue for another three months.

She says the meeting was “tone deaf” and focused a lot on lecturing people about typical coyote behaviour rather than responding directly to the situation her group has documented in recent months. She and The Coyote Safety Coalition were scheduled to have another meeting with the city’s animal services on Friday.

At the Thursday public meeting, many of those who spoke seemed to want less explanation, and more protection, or at least practical self-defence advice. Many others who spoke pleaded that the coyotes not be killed.

No one seemed bloodthirsty, or wanted revenge. They just wanted to be able to walk around their neighbourhood without being afraid.聽

Kooner says her preferred strategy is trapping the coyotes and relocating them somewhere else 鈥� to a refuge or something. If more coyotes eventually move in, she’s fine with that, because they won’t have the same abnormal behaviours that these ones are displaying. “We coexisted with these coyotes for years. Their behaviour has changed dramatically,” she said, noting the change came at the same time as the development of Ontario Place and commencement of other recent construction of the Ontario Line subway.聽

Back when I spoke to urban ecologist Strauss, he told me that while coyotes are typically skilled at living under the radar, sometimes they display “atypical behaviours” that make them dangerous, and that in those cases they have to be removed.聽

It is something the city is considering, “all options” being on the table. 40 attacks in three months. Six in one night this week. Four dogs dead. Something has to change, and soon. As Malik said “this cannot drag on.”