Coyotes Head to Beaches and a Fight with City Hall

A confluence of wild nature and ideological city of Toronto stupidity has hit the Beaches. Several years ago, the city put ideology into garbage disposal and stopped picking it up frequently. To make matters worse, they intend for most garbage to be in the recyclable category, which they now pick up only every 2 weeks. That is, the majority of city garbage hangs about in people's houses, porches, garages, and sheds for 2 weeks before being picked up. The city allowed that maybe compost ought to be picked up more frequently and opted for the weekly option, instead of returning to the decades-old practice of twice a week. So for up to one week, non-scrubbed out recyclables hang out for 2 weeks and bones, animal fat, and discarded raw silver skin moulder in the garbage, sending out their siren call to rats, raccoons, and now coyotes.

The city couldn't care less about how, in the words of one private health inspector, the increased amount of recyclable garbage was growing the rat population. They couldn't care less that garbage hanging out for too long on private property plus their stupid policy of not allowing trapped animals to be transported into rural areas, led to increased territorial disputes between raccoons, the psychological stress on humans of seeing that, and the worsening damage to property and threat to small dogs caused by too many raccoons. But now that a lawyer in the Beaches has had his dog chomped by a coyote, they're suddenly sitting up and taking notice. Nothing like the implicit threat of being sued by a Torontonian who knows the ropes to get the city to care.

"[Brad Gates, president of AAA Gates Wildlife Control] said the animals were likely attracted to the area because of food sources like garbage. ... Moving the Beach coyotes without addressing the issue of potential food sources would be pointless, he said."

"[Eletta Purdy, manager of Toronto Animal Services] said when coyotes cross paths with humans, the city has four options. The first is education, encouraging residents to keep an eye on their garbage and watch smaller pets." (Emily Mathieu, The Toronto Star, 24 February 2009)

Oh, I like that one. Somehow keeping one eyeball, maybe even both, on your garbage 24/7 will keep the coyotes away. Yup, I can see the coyote now thinking, "I can smell garbage, but that guy has had a red-rimmed bleary eye on it for 2 days now, waiting until the city deigns to pick it up and take that lovely rotting meat and empty tuna can far away from me. No way I can get it... well, until the guy falls asleep cause those hairless skins can't stay awake a whole 7 to 14 days. Heheh."

The city is going to make the coyotes uncomfortable apparently, and if that doesn't work, will shoot them. But Documentary filmmakers have shown that when humans go on a coyote hunt, coyotes thrive, grow in numbers, and expand their territory. On a finite piece of land, like PEI, natural containment takes over, but Toronto isn't on a finite piece of land. It's part of an enormous province, and the city itself is huge with lots of fabulous ravines to traverse in. Wildlife management must've known the coyotes were coming, as they've been expanding into cities from west to east of North America for years now. But instead of anticipating and trying to prevent that, the city has ensured an ample supply of food for rats, raccoons, and now coyotes, by clinging to their idea of garbage-is-bad-so-we-won't-pick-it-up in the face of competing practical considerations. I first heard of coyotes in High Park, then in a local ravine in midtown Toronto, and now they're in the Beaches. I think it's a bit late to try and control their spread even if some residents naturally want them gone. Obviously, the city focussing on eyeballs-on-garbage, discomfort, and shooting as ways to control them, instead of reducing the cause -- plentiful garbage -- and implementing preventative measures, like tall fences between ravines and private property -- is not working.

Since Toronto won't fix the obvious, the best thing would be if we could somehow entice the coyotes to go after the coons and the rats. They could be the ecological balance to the idiots in Toronto's City Hall. They could save us from our politicians!