In 2009, researcher Colleen Cassady St. Clair noticed that coyote sightings in urban neighbourhoods were being reported more often. She was also seeing the animals in areas where they hadn't dared to venture before. St. Clair figured more information about their presence and behaviour would be beneficial, so she launched the Edmonton Urban Coyote Project in collaboration with the City of Edmonton and Animal Damage Control.
"Coyotes are a really interesting example of an animal that adapts well to urban living, so I thought by studying them we could learn more about the sources of conflict, how to mitigate them, and also learn some things that could be useful about the conservation of species that don't do so well in cities," says St. Clair, a professor in the Faculty of Science whose research focuses on human-wildlife conflict and conservation biology.
That initial project spawned a community-based hazing program that sought to empower Edmontonians with the tools and knowledge to help increase coyote wariness. Hazing is a wildlife management technique that involves making loud noises and throwing objects to scare an animal away.
However, as St. Clair explains, "one of the principles to make hazing effective is to ensure that it occurs often enough that animals can generalize that experience and become more wary and careful around people."
Wildlife management professionals typically handle hazing of animals like bears in national parks and similar areas, but St. Clair knew they'd need more people to cover an area as large as Edmonton. So they turned to the city's residents. St. Clair and her collaborator Howard Harshaw and their co-supervised Master's student Gabrielle Lajeunesse recruited 120 volunteers from 71 Edmonton neighbourhoods for the program, which was the focus of a recently published study.
Volunteers received training on how to identify "bold" coyotes that were in residential areas during the daytime and allowed a person to approach within 40 metres. All volunteers were given sand-weighted tennis balls tied with flagging tape (which mimics a technique called fladry known to scare canines) to haze coyotes. They also received a card with several squares cut out that allowed volunteers to measure their distance from a coyote based on which square it fully occupied.
The volunteers logged over 1,300 hours of surveillance in two four-month field seasons. Volunteers reported only 175 coyote sightings, providing evidence that encounters are rarer than people may think.
Additionally, over the two years of the hazing program, only 23 coyotes met the conditions to elicit hazing. In the majority of encounters, a volunteer holding up the distance-measuring card was apparently intimidating enough to prompt the coyote to leave the area.
"These results underscore the fact that it's really rare to see a coyote in close range in a residential area during the day, the circumstance that creates the most concern. And when that occurs, it's easy to intimidate them."
Volunteers felt empowered by the tools and knowledge they gained from participating in the program, St. Clair adds. One volunteer based in Rossdale, a neighbourhood with a high frequency of coyote sightings, said she used to be afraid when taking her small dog for a walk. However, after an encounter with a coyote where she successfully used the techniques she'd learned, her fear evaporated.
"A lot of the information campaigns assert that you don't need to be afraid of coyotes, but I think the difference in this approach is that it gives people an opportunity for more experiential learning, to see for themselves that you don't need to be afraid of coyotes."
While many assume that avoiding physical attacks is the main reason to increase coyote wariness, St. Clair says there's a bigger issue to be aware of — coyotes have the potential to spread an extremely dangerous tapeworm.
"A new strain of a tapeworm called Echinococcus multilocularis arrived from Europe recently and then mutated. It appears to be much more virulent for people than the old strain was and 35 Albertans have been diagnosed with it over the past 12 years."
Coyotes shed microscopic eggs in their scat, and because the eggs are so tiny, they easily travel in the wind or water, or through animals like birds and dogs interacting with the scat.
"The parasite is not symptomatic for five to 15 years and it's about 95 per cent fatal if not detected and treated. So we really do not want coyotes in children's playgrounds, community gardens or the edge of residential yards."
About 65 per cent of the coyotes tested from Edmonton were positive for this parasite, which has created a new dimension for coexisting safely with coyotes — one of the core aims of the Edmonton Urban Coyote Project, says St. Clair.
"I don't think we're going to get rid of coyotes but I do think it's realistic to have coyotes and people somewhat segregated and to minimize coyote presence in the areas where people spend a lot of time."
And though the low-intensity hazing study has wrapped up, St. Clair encourages residents to haze coyotes when they see them at close range in residential areas. She works with the City of Edmonton to support a new high-intensity hazing program implemented by city rangers that will target areas with persistent coyote issues. And her PhD student Sage Raymond is studying coyote cognition, gaining insight on how coyotes overcome their natural fear of humans and new objects to venture forth seeking food in residential and other urban areas.
