A British Columbia(Canada) letter writer in the city of Penticton reprimanding a fellow citizen about unfairly labeling Coyotes as "people killers"

Risk overblown

I must take issue with the letter from R & B Duke in the Western Oct. 19 regarding coyotes. This letter, by stating coyotes are "... capable of killing pets, as well as humans," implies our streets in Penticton are unsafe and attacks by coyotes are common.

Please do your research before making such statements. In actual fact the October 2009 death in Canada was the first in all of Canada and was by eastern coyotes that are considerably larger than the ones out west. Further, there has been only one death in the U.S., a three-year-old in 1981 in California.

Having lived in Penticton since way back when we just used to have five telephone numbers, I can assure the Dukes that coyotes have been around in town for years, and in a hard winter when they became desperate for food, it was not uncommon to hear of pets, particularly cats, going missing. I often had to pass on bad news having seen mangled remains in the Oxbows on my walks.

In spite of what certain politicians would have you believe, we are not being invaded with a wildlife "take back the streets" movement and, given the multitude of products and options that are available to deter deer from chewing on your plants etc., it is time people stopped whining about the wildlife and started to take a closer look at some of the local politicians.

Brian Sutch