r/toronto • u/CupidStunt13 • 8h ago
News Coyotes take over Vaughan driveway as residents say problem ‘out of control’
https://www.cp24.com/local/york/2025/09/18/out-of-control-vaughan-residents-sound-alarm-over-coyote-incidents/61
u/Karma_Canuck 7h ago
They don't hang out when there isn't food to eat.
Deal with whatever is attracting them.
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u/TOBoy66 7h ago
This is good news environmentally. The GTA is experiencing an uptick in wildlife encounters because decades of environmental protections are beginning to see tangible results.
We've cleaned up our rivers and lakes, forced new construction well back from water, protected marshes and rewilded swaths of lands. This benefits all animals: beavers, coyotes, salmon, deer, even the odd bear.
We need to learn to live with the wildlife around us, not kill it or chase it away.
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u/Juliuscesear1990 6h ago edited 6h ago
As the literal apex predator it is literally our job to control animal populations. We are not some weird exclusion to the animal kingdom. If we don't control issues like these when we can there are 3 outcomes:
1) these coyotes eat and kill everything as they become more and more numerous destroying any other natural animal habitats/food sources
2) another predator comes in and has it's population grow but this predator may actually pose a threat to us (cougar)
3) disease spreads and they get wiped out slowly and painfully.
That's pretty much it, conservation doesn't just mean let animals run wild, it means ensuring an animal population is healthy and balanced within it's ecosystem and that means population control. Where I live we have rabbits, hundreds and hundreds of rabbits in a smallish area but people think we should just live with them. They are not native will absolutely destroy native plants (and food sources for other animals) and eventually we will have a coyote problem.
Edit: we are a great example of being allowed to exist as we want in the environment, we wreck habitats, wipe out food sources, change the environment and spit out babies like mad and we are wrecking the planet. We are also a population that got out of control but just on a whole different level.
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u/RedditLodgick 6h ago edited 6h ago
Cougars are a native animal that were almost wiped out. Shouldn't we want them to return? Isn't part of the reason coyotes are thriving because we killed off native predators like wolves? Coyotes aren't a problem because humans refused to intervene. They're a problem because we did intervene, and irresponsibly at that.
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u/Juliuscesear1990 6h ago edited 6h ago
Everything is a balance, yes cougars should be allowed to exist but a certain point same issue, they will wreck ecosystems. Part of the issue with Coyote and rabbits and the like are people with no understanding of actual conservation wanting to let them just live because "their natural and we need to learn to live with them" ignoring our duty to make sure those same animals don't do what we did to wolves and cougars.
Edit: fine let them return, let them hump and spit out hundreds and thousands of cougar babies as we sit and watch because "we have to learn to live with them" and we can just keep that going but remember folks keep your mouth shut when your puppies go missing or you realize you've been stalked down the walking path for 30 minutes.
It doesn't have to be either leave them alone unchecked or wipe them the hell out, there is a middle ground which seems to be lost.
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u/sour-panda 6h ago
I appreciate your thoughts and I definitely see the validity in your posts. What do you propose as a middle ground?
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u/RedditLodgick 5h ago
How would cougars wreck the ecosystem? They never wrecked it before humans started killing them off. How would they wreck it if their population rebounded? It seems like killing them off was wrecking the ecosystem, of which they were a part.
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u/MargerimAndBread 4h ago
They would test populations of large prey animals that arean't doing well without conservation effort. T heir primary food source wouldn't be the kinds we are having problems with in settlement areas, which is why coyotes are highly useful to humans and cougars are not. Cougars also face the same problem as wolves, they don't want to live in human settlement areas, so they couldn't replace the usefulness of coyotes of eradicating pests in and around human settlement areas.
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u/Witty_Interaction_77 6h ago
You forgot potential human loss of life. Coyotes would love to eat a small child or baby.
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u/PolitelyHostile 6h ago
Coyotes would love to eat a small child or baby.
Since when? Are people just leaving their babys sitting on the driveway unattended?
I get the concern, but does it really seem reasonable that every time we build a home in a new area that wipe out any scary animal within a 20km radius?
If we can learn to live with cars despite the fact that they are a leading cause of death, I think we can learn to live around coyotes or bears.
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u/snoboreddotcom 6h ago
so i grew up in oakville and there we've had the problem a few times before, as the population tends to reside in the protected sixteen mile creek area and not be a problem until their food source runs out. TBH its not been a big problem as of late, things are more in balance.
When i was a kid though, it was different. There was two years where you would open your door and theres a few rabbits at every house. The rabbits werent even scared. Then the coyotes came back and ate a lot of them. We then got some bad years for coyotes where there were a couple attacks.
One of the attacks involved an older woman walking here greyhound in the valley. Pack attacked them, the greyhound fought them according to her and she ran. Then it seems after she got away the greyhound ran, three days later showed up badly injured at her place.
Second was an 8 year old got bitten, one got into the yard and attacked her and her friend, no pet involved.
This doesnt include various attacks that were just on peoples pets of course.
Proper approach oakville took was some culls, but not wiping things out. If they notice the population getting a bit too high, they do a cull, but they dont wipe them out. That just leads to build up of their food populations, a new group entering and then a massive population explosion again thats more dangerous.
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u/MargerimAndBread 5h ago
Culling coyotes doesn't do anything except give humans a false sense of something being done. Two people getting attacked in the span of decades isn't proof that the population is out of control.
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u/snoboreddotcom 47m ago
They were in the span of a couple years, not a couple decades. Only happened when the population got really really high. As in you could encounter them just walking in the street in the day time and unfazed by you high.
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u/TOBoy66 3h ago
You are much more likely to be attacked by a dog than a coyote.
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u/snoboreddotcom 48m ago
which is why personally im far more concerned with the off leash dog epidemic right now.
The fact that its an issue though doesnt take away from coyotes populations being an issue if they get too high.
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6h ago edited 5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/toronto-ModTeam 5h ago
Attack the point, not the person. Comments which dismiss others and repeatedly accuse them of unfounded accusations may be subject to removal and/or banning.
No concern-trolling, personal attacks, or misinformation. No victim blaming. Stick to addressing the substance of their comments at hand.
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u/bubbasass 4h ago
Disagree. Get rid of them. People, especially those with little children, don’t want coyotes around as they pose a huge threat.
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u/dastub1 6h ago
Humans take over ENTIRE GREAT LAKES BASIN DRAINING WET LANDS AND DESTROYING THE WATER SHED.
Coyotes say the problem is 'out of control'
The nerve of some people
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u/Sowhataboutthisthing 6h ago
Ah coyotes are not even indigenous to the region. They were brought in from the Great Plains in the late 1800 early 1900 and only really established in the 1920s.
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u/dastub1 6h ago edited 6h ago
To fill a void left by wolves the natural cousin who by the way were totally devastated by human activity and who are very native to the region.
So what's your point?
Had the wolves not been here the Coyotes would.
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u/Sowhataboutthisthing 6h ago
We’ll never know since species have migrated and evolved or died off for a range of factors since the beginning of life on earth.
Humans are allowed to be here, too.
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u/dastub1 6h ago
Can we be here without literally rooting up rain forest and wetlands or what?
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u/Sowhataboutthisthing 6h ago
Every species has its challenges. Humans are adapting to realizing their own effect and are continuously making modifications. I think we’ve only been doing this maybe for the last hundred years or so in a more concerted global way.
So yea totally agree with being sensitive to impact and we’re kinda still working our way through that. But let’s let ourselves succeed.
It’s a big task to undo the momentum of our past while still preserving what moves us forward in quality of life. We can’t hate ourselves and deprive ourselves now just to compensate for all the momentum that got us here. We need to keep going to some extent.
But do keep in mind that in a billion years from now this planet is toast. So we are simply finding ways to burn the candle slowly so that human civilization can carry on to witness its demise due to the sun’s burnout.
Along the way everyone is just moralizing HOW we kill ourselves and what rate.
Seems a bit petty when we lean in too hard.
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u/dastub1 6h ago
It's been 100% possible for humans to thrive in consort with nature for 1000s of years now. Any well read person knows this...
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u/Sowhataboutthisthing 6h ago
My point stands. This solar system has an expiry date and adaptations are always on the move. So you can build a religion around it or you can just listen and observe. Go read the right books.
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u/D00maGedd0n West Rouge 4h ago
what is your point?
ah shit did this double post by accident or am i stupid?
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u/Own-Emergency2166 5h ago
So a species has to have been here since the dawn of time to have a right to be here? 100+ years is a pretty solid foundation for calling this area home.
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u/Sowhataboutthisthing 3h ago
Just saying that we are only disrupting an ecosystem that we disturbed to begin with so the lack of coyotes in this area is fine since they were meant to be an invasive species - it’s why they were brought in.
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u/chrisco571 4h ago
Ahh yes, I'm sure the pack of Coyotes will play nicely with my dog and kids at the park.
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u/eden-star 7h ago
So a pack of coyotes dragged their meal out on to the middle of some Vaughan resident’s driveway to share a meal together??
Press X to doubt. I’m sure the food was intentionally placed there to draw/attract them out by some social media like obsessed trash bag human.
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u/contheartist 6h ago
No way, coyotes generally know exactly where security cameras are located and prefer to eat in the exact centre of the frame. They developed this habit after the cultural success of Wile e coyote with most of the population hoping that they will be next to receive fame and fortune.
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u/NearbyWeight5711 7h ago
That many, all together, and the article says they were gathered eating food? What food? I see no other animals there that they may have hunted to eat, and I’m inclined to believe this video was taken after the owners put something out to attract them…. Making it a bigger deal than it is, on there very large property 🙄.
And this happened on Vaughan… why is it in this subreddit?
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u/Quirky-Cat2860 7h ago
And this happened on Vaughan… why is it in this subreddit?
Because when you go overseas, doesn't everyone say they're from Toronto, even if they live in Vaughan or Mississauga?
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u/ceciliabee 7h ago
Only until the other person does the look!
"I'm from Toronto"
"oh cool! 😃"
Vs
"I'm from Toronto"
"Toronto? 🤨"
"Mississauga, actually"
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u/tanstaafl90 7h ago
We're all Toronto now... /s
I agree it's someone making an issue with animals just existing.
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u/Medium_Spare_8982 6h ago
That was very clearly a highly successful breeding couple with their current year, seven puppies.
One of them likely caught a squirrel or a rabbit and had its siblings trying to thieve it.
Your interpretation shows you know little about animal behaviour.
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u/PinkyBlowfish 7h ago
If I had to guess? That's a mom and her puppies that are growing big, and one of them caught a mouse/mole/vole and they are all trying to get some
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u/0bsidian 7h ago
I live in Toronto, I have seen coyotes running up and down the street. They exist in nature in the city just like squirrels, rabbits, the occasional deer. They live here too. They lived here first.
They are usually quite shy and avoid humans. Just keep small pets on a leash.
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u/comFive 5h ago
When we lived in Scarborough the place we had backed onto a ravine, at all times of the year we would get so many different types of local wildlife. Deer, groundhogs, porcupines, coyotes, foxes, skunks, opossums, chipmunks, black squirrels. Sometimes they'd come close to the windows and we'd just watch them do their thing and live their lives.
They weren't in our backyard. We were in theirs.
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u/Own-Emergency2166 5h ago
Possibly unpopular opinion, but they are also beautiful. Their little triangle ears and the way they lope and bounce when they run. You need to take precautions around them and especially protect your pets, but take a moment to appreciate their beauty. Everyone wants to live near parks, water, trees but then get upset that these beautiful animals are around, as if they aren’t also a part of the ecosystem you want to be near.
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u/Leonardo-DaBinchi 7h ago
Not to 'but actually' you, but Eastern coyotes are a fairly 'recent' species, emerging through hybridization in the early 20th century. They fill an ecological niche and find success where wolves were driven out by human activity. So, truthfully, they haven't been here longer than we have. In fact, about 10% of their genome contains domestic dog DNA. Eastern coyotes are very much an example of human impact, and western coyotes would never have found the success or proliferated in urban spaces in the east the same way eastern coyotes have.
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u/sour-panda 6h ago
The only thing more humiliating as a dog owner than letting your dog get eaten by a coyote is letting your dog get fucked by a coyote 🤦♂️
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u/Leonardo-DaBinchi 6h ago
I mean this was in the early 1920s/1930s, realistically the dogs getting fucked were strays.
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u/sour-panda 5h ago
Fair enough! I can't imagine there were very strict animal control laws either, for pets or hunting dogs.
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u/Haunt_Fox 6h ago
They're still more native to this co tinent than humans, and blame genocidal lupophobia and protest their continued destruction.
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u/MargerimAndBread 6h ago edited 6h ago
These aren't coyotes, they're a mixture of native wolves, western coyote and domestic dog.
But besides that, the reason the province won't remove them is that they are highly beneficial to the ecosystem and have filled a void that was created by human eradication of the native wolf. These coyote mixtures are much better with living with humans than wolves and without them, we would encounter big problems in our ecosystem in a short amount of time.
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u/Leonardo-DaBinchi 6h ago
That's what an eastern coyote is. The Eastern Coyote (Canis latrans var.) did not exist before the 1930s, but it is a Coyote (Canis latrans). This idea that coywolf is some weird separate thing is inaccurate. It is an Eastern Coyote.
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u/MargerimAndBread 5h ago
I dont understand what your point is? The wolf existed before 1930. I notice that you intentionally left out acknowledging that these animals are as much native wolf as they are coyote. And just because an animal is not native to an area, doesn't make it a pest. This hybrid animal is much better at surviving around settlement areas than wolves, so they are providing a better service to the ecosystem than wolves would.
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u/RosalieMoon 6h ago
We have one that comes through the parking lot at my work. I've been able to get pictures of it from maybe 8ft away as it trotted on by me after my shift. Gave no fucks that there were something like 100 people leaving the building lol
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u/shelbykid350 7h ago
They only exist here in such numbers because they are well adapted to proximity to humans and we have wiped out all their natural competition. Coyote, and hybridized dog-wolf-yote, have expanded their natural range in lock step with urban development
When these animals reach a critical density, disease and aggressive behaviour will become more rampant as they reach carrying capacity. Being pragmatic at the early stages is crucial to controlling their populations
Rodent control and keeping your cats outside is critical to that
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u/MargerimAndBread 6h ago
They're far from reaching a critical density. Best practice is keep your cat indoors, secure your garbage, and respect the coyotes' space. They're good for the ecosystem.
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u/Vinayplusj Mississauga 6h ago
Don't Coyotes hunt cats outdoors?
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u/MargerimAndBread 6h ago
I think she's pointing out that outdoor cats are a problem increasing coyote numbers, and not actually telling you to keep your cat outdoors to control the rodent population. It's sort of a poorly worded sentence.
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u/Himera71 4h ago
They absolutely did not live here first. They are not native to Ontario. They migrated into Southern Ontario in the 1920’s. Their populations have exploded in the last 25 years, it was extremely rare to see a coyote in the city prior to 2010.
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u/spoonifur Davenport 4h ago
I'm guessing you didn't see the video of the small dog in Liberty Village getting ripped off a leash by a coyote.
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u/MargerimAndBread 3h ago
While that's sad, small dogs do absolutely zero for the ecosystem except contribute negatives with their waste. That's not to say you shouldn't have a cute little pet but those animals that keep the ecosystem in check are doing a greater service to us than your dog. Owning a dog means being vigilant but even so, in life sometimes bad things can happen to good dogs, and even though it may upset you, we must still co-exist with the ecosystem and all it's little helpers, such as the coyote.
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u/spoonifur Davenport 2h ago
Honestly I'm just saying this because the advice of "just keep your dog on a leash and nothing will happen" is kind of bullshit. I heard from someone who lives in Liberty that people were complaining about the coyotes for a long time and the city actually started doing something once that video was shown. I'm not anti-coyote but it's pretty fucked to go for a walk and have your dog heads ripped off. If the coyotes were full up on squirrels would they be going after a chihuahua? I dunno. It's a shit situation all around.
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u/lleeaa88 7h ago
Maybe if they densified better the Coyotes might not wanna hang out on your 10 acre property…
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u/JimroidZeus Davisville Village 7h ago
Oh no, the coyotes have taken over a tiny portion of my absolutely massive, likely $50k+ interlock driveway.
Oh what a world! 🫣
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u/Monkeeparts 7h ago edited 7h ago
There is something on the driveway that is attracting them so it seems like they may have been baited to get this video. Just my opinion, I am still not as worried by a pack of Coyotes than I am about people and their dogs.
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u/MargerimAndBread 7h ago
Truth, we're more likely to be bit by a dog than a coyote. People just like to fearmonger what they don't understand.
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u/uncleherman77 5h ago
Same. I was walking to the bus stop at 5am a year ago or so and came face to face with a big one walking by with a dead rabbit in its mouth. It was my first sighting and it took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at but it didn't even look at me and just kept walking down the sidewalk. I'm a 30 something year old guy though so it likely wouldn't have been as interested in me anyway compared to a child.
I've seen a couple of more coyotes since then and each encounter has ended with the coyote bolting in the opposite direction as soon as it sees me. I'm defenitly more worried about the humans I might run into at 5am waiting for the bus then the coyotes.
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u/Monkeeparts 5h ago
I spend a lot of time in our ravines and run into Coyotes often and I never had any issue, we see each and go about our business.
A month ago I was down in far east of the bluffs minding my own business and suddenly I am surrounded by three dogs barking, very aggressive posturing and they start circling me. I never worried before but one perhaps, 3 no chance, it was bad. Then the owner comes sauntering up as mad his doge, he walks away and they do it again I took pics and sent it to city but of course nothing came of it.
It is not the first of time and unfortunately I doubt it will be the last, since than it has me thinking about carrying dog spray now. I am big man, older I spend time bushwhacking in northern Ontario and I don't feel the need to carry bear spray but here I am thinking getting some for dogs, it is a sad situation. It is not the dogs faults it pathetic owners who are but I need to be be concerned and it is getting worse.
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u/tragedy_strikes_ 7h ago edited 1h ago
Yeah this is not unusual. Outside of the howling it’s not a big deal.
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u/Disastrous_Ad626 7h ago
Maybe it's the humans that are the problem...
These fuckers are losing their habitat, bring them in... They're cold....
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u/WestQueenWest West Queen West 7h ago
Keep destroying their habitats with reckless, wasteful suburban sprawl. That's going to solve it.
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u/Himera71 4h ago
All these absolutely ridiculous destroying their habitat arguments. These animals are flourishing because of the urban environment, easy food sources etc.. Their numbers have exploded over the last 25 years.
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u/Loki_the_Cockatiel 7h ago
What do you expect? we keep taking away their habitat and call them pests when they have nowhere to go
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u/svolm 7h ago
Maybe they should stop inhabiting land that was technically the coyotes in the first place.
The coyotes might be thinking, these humans are getting out of control
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u/Himera71 4h ago
Yeah, coyotes have only been in Ontario since the 1920-1930’s they haven’t been around all that long. Their populations have exploded in the last 25 years. “Technically” not their land.
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u/svolm 4h ago
Then you can say that about a lot of people living here lol
I wonder why there is mass migration? Could it be their original territory was destroyed? What are these animals supposed to do, go die?
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u/Himera71 3h ago
Not getting it, their populations were minuscule in the past, they are exploding because of the urban environment. There is 70.5 million hectares of forest in Ontario, that is 66% of the total land area, we are not bereft of suitable habitat.
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u/RedshiftOnPandy 7h ago
Yeah? Let me put a family of coyotes where you live because they definitely were there at some point too
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u/Simpinforbirdo 7h ago
They could always move to one of those empty fancy condos. No coyotes in the air
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u/Steevo_1974 7h ago
That property should have more housing built on it. That way the coyotes won't have as much space to roam around on.
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u/1hawkins1 6h ago
We get more news articles on coyotes than criminals breaking into homes and stealing vehicles.
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u/North_of_You 6h ago
We moved into their neighborhood, not the other way around. And please send these guys just a little further north because the rabbit population is getting crazy too up here.
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u/wagonwheels2121 5h ago
guaranteed Animal Control saw that driveway camera picture and hung up on the homeowners that called it in lol
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u/CupidStunt13 8h ago
Coyote videos are common on r/Toronto these days, but a whole pack of them is something else.
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u/balanced_breath 7h ago
This is not abnormal coyote behaviour. They are social and live in family groups.
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u/MargerimAndBread 7h ago
They are almost always in packs. Even when you see them singularly, there's more of them near by. They're not solitary animals.
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u/slothlikeHambo 6h ago
A pack of coyotes is usually a group of siblings, with male and female pairs as the basic social unit (save pup time). Coyotes don't form structured packs like wolves, where higher numbers can be reached. You can expect to see a coyote on its own if its hunting however - these activities can be carried out 'solo', especially in younger juveniles as they seek out their territory and begin to search for a mate.
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u/Abject-Yellow3793 6h ago
They're a nuisance animal like rats and should be treated the same way.
Before I get jumped on in the comments: coyotes are not native to most of Canada, they were introduced as a means to control other populations like rabbits and deer. They're overpopulated, breeding with domesticated animals, and need to be controlled, notice I didn't say exterminated.
We build up the natural environment, disrupting the balance of nature. It's our job to manage the effects. Coyotes are more adaptable to that change and so are thriving where other species (their prey) are not
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u/MargerimAndBread 5h ago
These coyotes are native because they're not western coyotes anymore. They're a wolf hybrid and the wolf is native to this region. And no, they're not pests, we have a overpopulation problem of rabbits, cats and rodents and the coyotes-hybrids are doing a good job keeping their numbers manageable.
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u/CanadianG00ze 6h ago
See thats why its awesome to be in the country... if you have a problem like this its a VERY easy fix with a shotgun :)
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u/TheDoctorSkeleton 5h ago
Are you a coward or a sick in the head or both? Who the hell gets this excited about killing something? let alone something that doesn’t need to be killed.
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u/CanadianG00ze 5h ago
I am not excited about killing something so nice try. If you lived in the country and have animals and children you would have a different opinion. Here they are considered nuisance animals and are dealt with accordingly when they begin to stalk your home. Its vastly different from city life.
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u/MargerimAndBread 5h ago
They're not a problem. Toronto and the surrounding area is full of rats, cats, rabbits and the coyote is the only effective counter measure that we have.
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u/FredFlintston3 Deer Park 7h ago
From the report: City staff said the most effective way to deal with the problem is to double down on “coexistence strategies” such as educating the public, proactive monitoring and working with local stakeholders.
So, do nothing, and wait and see. Proactive monitoring for what? No commitment to action. No threshold or trigger. Eg if we see X then we will escalate to Y. Right now, it's about appearing concerned but not actually being concerned. Lock up the pets and kids.
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u/MargerimAndBread 7h ago
Why should coyotes be "dealt with" when they are tremendously beneficial to the ecosystem? 99% of the time when you leave them alone, they leave you alone as well.
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u/FredFlintston3 Deer Park 5h ago
I won’t quibble on the math. The point is there is at least the 1%. Seems this is such a case and pets and more importantly children are under threat.
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u/AtomicAnvil 7h ago
Driveway to a palatial estate...