Toronto deputy mayor pitches urgent coyote action plan after string of downtown attacks

Toronto's deputy mayor is taking her action plan to address coyote attacks to city hall. 

On Wednesday, Coun. Ausma Malik will introduce a plan at the city's economic and community development committee that would instruct city staff to research how to best address the problem, including looking at what tools could be used to divert the animals, and what other cities are doing to manage their populations.

She also wants an education campaign for residents to teach them how to protect themselves, and to explain what the city is doing to curb the attacks. 

If the plan gets the green light, it would then head to city council in late March. 

When speaking to CBC News about the coyote issue earlier this month, Malik said she was horrified by the increase in sightings and attacks on dogs in downtown neighbourhoods this winter. 

"What we are seeing here is not new in terms of coyotes' presence, but the behaviour, the severity and the escalation is unprecedented," she previously said.

According to a group of neighbours that call themselves The Coyote Safety Coalition, there have been more than 50 pet attacks in Fort York and Liberty Village since November.

"We urgently call for a comprehensive and sustainable action plan to address this issue permanently," the coalition said in a Feb. 11 letter signed by Ruby Kooner, a Liberty Village resident who says her dog died after a coyote attack in November.

The group also says coyotes have chased humans a number of times. 

The city has already pledged to increase patrols in the Fort York and Liberty Village areas after a number of sightings and incidents this winter, and to patch up fencing along the train tracks to keep the canines away from parks where dog owners let their pets run free. 

Malik and local MPP Chris Glover have both pinned the blame for the sudden change in coyote behaviour on construction at Ontario Place, arguing that the redevelopment has removed green space from the coyote's former habitat, pushing them into the city. 

An environmental assessment for the Ontario Place redevelopment did not report any coyote habitat in the area, but Glover says that didn't look at the entirety of the redevelopment area. A Metrolinx assessment for the Ontario Line's planned Exhibition Station found evidence of coyotes in the area.

Mike Fenn, a spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources, said in a statement earlier this month that multiple assessments and studies of the Ontario Place redevelopment showed no evidence of coyotes on the site.

Glover has suggested that the coyotes need to be relocated, though a wildlife expert interviewed by the CBC points out that wildlife can only be moved a maximum of one kilometer under provincial legislation.