Letters to the Editor

Increased coyote presence 

April 10, 2025   ·   0 Comments

There have been a lot of recent news reports about an increased coyote presence in downtown Toronto’s Liberty Village. These news reports started to appear not long after the construction and/or destruction began at Ontario Place. The 155-acre Ontario Place site was an oasis for wildlife and humans alike for many decades. The 865 trees sheltered many bird species, foxes, rabbits, mink and coyotes with countless squirrels and rodents.

Under the cover of darkness, this oasis was destroyed. All 865 mature trees were removed, bulldozed and sent through the wood chippers. It was turned into a 155-acre moonscape.

All the wildlife had lost their homes or were bulldozed into the ground. Birds were seen circling the destroyed oasis the next morning. Coyotes lost their home and a major source of food. The coyotes had to find another food source without other rival coyotes defending their own territories.

The coyotes found Liberty Village with no rivals. They survive on discarded food, road kill, rats and stray cats. The desperate coyotes are resorting to snatching small dogs from their owners in the middle of the day. This is not normal coyote behaviour.

People Really Need to Educate Themselves

Coyotes are very resilient intelligent animals. For well over a century, we have tried to remove and cull the coyote from North America. The coyote population has only increased in this time.

When a coyote population is depleted by culling, the female will begin compensatory reproduction. This means the female coyote will alter its reproductive output and have bigger litters.

Also once an area of coyotes is completely cleared it is almost immediately filled by coyotes from neighbouring areas. This is called compensatory immigration.

Decades of scientific research have proven that practices like culling and relocation are ineffective at controlling coyote populations.

Continuing this practice is just cruelty. The short-sighted development of the 155-acre Ontario Place site is a major factor in the increased coyote presence in downtown Toronto’s Liberty Village. 

WE JUST NEED TO LEARN HOW TO LIVE WITH THEM.

The coyote issues in Toronto’s Liberty Village will be minor compared to another shortsighted environmental catastrophe that is being pushed by the short-term economic interests of the Ford government and well-connected sprawl developers. The proposed 52-kilometre Highway 413 project will bulldoze over 2,400 acres of prime farmlands, thousands of trees, wetlands and all the ecosystems within it. All the wildlife will be displaced or bulldozed into the ground just like Ontario Place. 

This means hundreds of coyotes will be looking for homes in communities like Mississauga, Georgetown, Brampton, Bolton, Woodbridge, and Vaughan. They will experience the same issues with coyotes that Toronto’s Liberty Village is dealing with right now but on a much more massive scale.

Coyotes are not the problem; we are the problem.

Every taxpayer in Ontario will pay $2.2 billion for the spa at Ontario Place and an estimated 10 billion for the Highway 413 project. This $12.2 billion price tag will be minuscule compared to the cost to our future generations’ quality of life. 

People don’t have to love coyotes and farmers must protect their livestock from them but it is long overdue for us to commit to educating ourselves about how to coexist with the coyote and all the wildlife with which we share this earth.

Remember what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves.

Terry Brooker 

Orangeville

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