Stop fear mongering on coyotes

RE: CONCERN OVER COYOTES GETS POLITICAL (AUG. 7)

Dave MacIntyre’s call to “remove” a den of coyote puppies in the city — a den which city officials have not found, and cannot act on — belies the dangerous, wilful ignorance of Ontario’s municipal governments regarding wildlife.

For one, coyotes do not live or sleep in dens outside of pupping season, and their pups will be ready to disperse around this time of year.

These shy, intelligent (and yes, opportunistic) animals are part of a renaissance, a new worldview under development, which we can see in cities everywhere in North America, a call for cities and wildlife to learn to coexist.

Why the time-proven advice of ‘how to scare away coyotes’ is always only at the end of news articles, secondary to fear-mongering headlines, is bewildering.

What is Hamilton’s supposed coyote issue, anyway? Most of us are reasonable about coyotes.

Of course, urban wildlife policies are political. Let’s get real and enjoy the spectre of this beautiful, elusive canid traipsing through our hydro corridors and in the greenbelt, its spine-chilling family howls at dawn and dusk. Take photos: they last longer, and in 2018 they’re much more valuable than fur pelts and fear-mongering. Jerynn Stryker, Eastern Coyote Foundation