Urban coyotes thrive in Edmonton's river valley
By Ed Struzik
University of Alberta biologist Maureen Murray attaches a tracking collar to a coyote caught in a heavily industrialized region of Edmonton.
EDMONTON - Early on a warm October morning, Bill Abercrombie is walking through Edmonton's Rainbow Valley when he spots the well-chewed leg bone of a deer that had been killed by a coyote.The kill site is no more than 100 metres from a small tent camp set up by some of the city's homeless people.
"Up there," he says, pointing to a much more affluent residential area on the edge of the ravine, "the city responded to a complaint several years ago about a coyote that had run off with a cat in broad daylight. Another coyote had apparently come along and they had a tug of war over who would get to eat it. The poor cat was like a party cracker. Quite the sight for those who saw it."
The animal he remembers most this day, however, is the one that he has been trying to trap for the past two years."When I first saw that animal in Whitemud Ravine, I said to myself, 'This is a big coyote.' But then when I took out my binoculars, I realized that I was wrong. This wasn't a big coyote, it was a massive coyote – maybe 45 or 50 pounds, which is way up there at the upper limit of how big these animals can get."
Abercrombie has no intention of doing any harm to this animal when and if he ever catches it. He and University of Alberta biologist Maureen Murray plan to wrap a tracking collar around its neck so that she and others associated with the Urban Coyote Project can track it and several other animals like it.
Murray is a classical musician who recently gave up full-time tromboning so she could collect coyote poop and tracking data that will tell her what this unique species of urban predator eats and does for a living. "The goal of the project," she says, "is to find ways of making sure that people can live with coyotes and minimize the need for eliminating those that get in trouble."
Like wolves, bears, cougars and other predators, coyotes have long made a living in the aspen parkland and short and long grass prairies of western North America feeding on everything from wild berries to jack rabbits and occasionally bigger animals such as deer and small elk. They still do. But while wolves, bears and cougars became occasional visitors to big city natural areas such as those in Edmonton and Calgary, the coyote found a way of expanding its range into Ontario at the turn of the century, into Quebec in the 1940s and into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the 1970s. They can now be found in western Newfoundland, as far north as Kugluktuk on the Arctic coast, and on the well-mown grasses of New York's Central Park.
The animal, in fact, has done so well expanding its range that big, busy cities such as Cleveland, Ohio now have signs up in city parks warning dog walkers and joggers to be aware of the animal.
Here in Edmonton and Calgary there are as many as 1,000 coyotes living in each of the cities' river valleys and natural areas travelling in family groups rather than packs. Females have given birth to pups under the Millcreek ravine staircase and on the perimeters of the Mayfair golf course. Most nights, they can be heard howling and yipping in the North Saskatchewan, Bow and Elbow River valleys.
Up until recently, there seemed to be little to worry about save for the occasional family pet that went missing or the early morning dog walker who was shadowed by a coyote that seemed to be a bit too predatory. Weighing between nine and 16 kilograms, coyotes in western Canada are generally no match for a large pet or a human.
Most people seem to like the idea that there are coyotes living in urban environments. In an ongoing survey that Murray and her colleagues have been conducting, most of those who responded were favourably disposed to sharing natural areas with coyotes. Some suggested that seeing one was a special moment in their lives.
One mom who recently bumped into Murray radio-tracking an animal was so excited about what the biologist was doing that she asked if she would host a birthday party for a group of 12-year-old boys.
"We had them running around with coyote collars on and taught them how to use VHF telemetry to find one another;" says Murray. "They loved it!
But that comfort zone is being tested by a small, but increasing, number of confrontations that have resulted in seriously frayed nerves, more and more missing cats and dogs and a number of nasty bites.
A 19-year-old musician who was killed by two coyotes while she hiked on a popular trail in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Highlands National Park two years ago was a wake-up call. Few people who have heard the story can forget how apparently healthy animals continued to growl and circle the fatally wounded woman even after four hikers came by and threw rocks at them.
Suddenly, the fine line that separated coyotes from more dangerous predators was crossed.
The hysteria that spread across the country didn't help. To allay public fear and the widely held perception that coyotes were also killing livestock, the government of Nova Scotia proposed putting a bounty on the animal. Not long after, an Ottawa-area hunting club advertised a coyote-hunting contest to reduce the number of animals in the region. "Parents are afraid to let their children out because of the coyotes," said City of Ottawa councillor Doug Thompson, who wanted the Ontario government to start culling coyotes.
Here in Edmonton and Calgary, city and wildlife officials are constantly responding to reports of coyotes in residential areas. But the vast majority of the calls don't amount to anything more than a sighting."We get at least three calls a day about coyotes, often many more," says Andy Nestorovich, a Fish and Wildlife officer in Edmonton. "Many people wants us to come in and remove them even if they aren't causing any trouble. What I tell them is that we want those good coyotes. Otherwise, problem coyotes that do cause trouble will move in and replace them."
So-called problem coyotes are the ones that run off with cats and small dogs and refuse to run away when people yell or throw things at them. Typically, but not always, these are the weaker animals that sometimes rely more on garbage, compost and crab apples than they do on rodents and jack rabbits in the natural areas.
No one in Edmonton has been keeping track of the number of bad coyotes living in the city. But in Calgary, which has a similar number of coyotes, data collected by University of Calgary biologist Shelley Alexander and her colleagues is telling.
Of the 1,684 reports of coyotes made to the 311 operator between 2005 and 2008, nine out of 10 of those calls were made by people who simply reported seeing an animal. Eighty-six of those involved a coyote that bit a pet or person or acted in an aggressive way.
Mike Quinn, a University of Calgary biologist who is working with Alexander in mapping the movement of coyotes in Calgary, wasn't surprised when he saw those numbers. "The number of negative interactions seems in line with other 'problem wildlife' reports related to deer, skunks, and squirrels," he says. "The difference with coyotes is that we are talking about something with big teeth that can pose a threat to pets and small children."
While good coyotes outnumber problem coyotes by an overwhelming margin, there is a possibility that the gap could narrow Here in Edmonton, Abercrombie isn't sounding the alarm bells. But at the same time, he believes that it's only a matter of time until more and more of these urban animals will test the limits of their relationship with humans, especially as their numbers grow, their natural habitat shrinks, and people continue poor practices when storing garbage and compost.
"Unlike most predators, which take hundreds if not thousands of years to adapt to new situations, the coyote does it almost on a daily basis," he says. "It's the reason why you find them living in almost every kind of habitat from New York City's Central Park all the way up to the tundra in the Arctic. They have this uncanny ability to exploit resources on a day-to-day basis. And they are very, very smart. That's what makes them so successful."
Animal intelligence, of course, can be measured in many different ways.One test that the coyote keeps passing with flying colours is the one in which it manages to elude being trapped. "If a trapper catches one, he knows that he is on top of his game," says Abercrombie, the day we check the site that had been set for that big coyote that continues to elude him. "The morning I set a trap for this guy, I looked over my shoulder at one point and there he was looking right at me. I knew then that it was unlikely we were going to get him. These animals seem to know when they are being targeted."
Urban coyotes, in fact, know every inch of their territory intimately. They can be comfortable with the idea of people walking through an area they inhabit, and they regularly cross busy roads. But the moment they sense the presence of something that is not routine, they get very suspicious. The faintest odour or sound can make them change course in mid-step. "I've seen this guy back up in and out of his tracks when he senses that something is not right," says Abercrombie. "He tends to avoid anything suspicious."
Born and bred in Alberta, Abercrombie is, by all accounts, very good at what he does. His great uncle, Frank Hudson, was a professional trapper and one of the so-called "crack cowboys" that led the ill conceived Bedaux expedition which set off from Edmonton in 1934 to open a new transportation route between Fort St John and Telegraph Creek, BC. He credits his father, an avid hunter, and his mother, a committed environmentalist for triggering his trapping genes.
"I have always been a history buff and as a young boy I pored over the adventures of early explorers, trappers and First Nations people, so to me it is not just a vocation but a highly romanticized concept of myself," he says. "It's a good thing that I kind of have the knack for trapping and bush living or I would have led a very unfulfilled life."
Here in Edmonton, Abercrombie would rather people get along with coyotes than calling him in to remove them."Most people don't realize it, but coyotes do a lot of good," he says. "If it weren't for them we'd be overrun by rodents, rabbits and deer in the city."
For Murray, working on the Urban Coyote Project has been a challenging, albeit gratifying experience.
Just three days after she stepped off the plane that took her from music school at Dalhousie University in Halifax to Edmonton in the fall of 2009, University of Alberta scientist Colleen Cassady St. Clair, the founder of the Urban Coyote Project, had her out trapping animals.
"I come from Prince Edward Island where there are no large predators," she says. "I was a music student. I really had no idea of what I was getting into. Fortunately, I had Bill and Joe (Abercrombie's nephew) to help and pretty much do it all for me in the beginning. Bill knows everything there is to know about trapping coyotes and other predators."
One of Murray's most memorable encounters was an enchanting one. When it appeared that one of her collared animals was habituated to a spot in Millwoods a few weeks ago, she decided to head out to see if it might be a den.But as she approached the site, the siren of an ambulance passing by blew her cover."All of the sudden these pups started singing," she recalls. "It was funny because they sounded more like cats than the coyotes' classic yipping. I guess they were still too young to make that sound that we all associate with the coyote."
While it is still too early to say what biologists in Edmonton and Calgary have learned about urban coyotes, it does appear that those animals that regularly feed on garbage, compost and family pets in residential areas are not as healthy as their wilder cousins.
These animals tend to be afflicted with mange, a skin disease that results in extensive hair loss.
Perhaps too weak to hunt for rodents, rabbits and deer in the river valley, these sick animals rely instead on food they get from backyard garbage bins and compost piles. One urban coyote that Murray was tracking in Edmonton was so badly weakened by mange and a bad diet that it ended up sleeping in people's backyards. Wildlife control specialists eventually had to come in and euthanize it.
Mike Quinn says there is no possible way that we can remove coyotes from an urban environment.
"In many ways they are like us in their ability to make a living in diverse environs," he says, "Cities are simply another kind of habitat that is working for them." Remove one coyote from an urban natural area, he adds, and another animal will move in quickly to take its place.
For those who have concerns about living so close to these predators, Quinn has some simple advice.
"Don't feed them," he says. "Proper storage of garbage, pet food, etc. is critical. Less obvious attractants include fruit trees and (berry) shrubs. The crabapples in Calgary and Edmonton are prime sources of fall food. We have coyotes here that even climb the trees to feed on the ripe apples." Avoidance of den sites by dog walkers is important as well, he adds, especially during the spring and summer.
"I also think we need to start looking at active 'hazing' activities to create fear and flight in coyotes. I think it is this kind of 'tough love' that will ultimately be the key to living with coyotes in cities."
A little over two years after she started the Urban Coyote project in Edmonton, Colleen Cassady St. Clair still finds it fascinating that there are so many of these predators moving undetected through the city natural environments. Most of the collared animals, she notes, almost never stray into residential areas.
What gratifies her most is how so many agencies and people have volunteered their time to this project.
"In our first field season in 2009, two wonderful undergrads, Adam Cembrowski and Ian Warrington, were assisted by three high school students in the WISEST (Women in Science, Engineering and Science Technology) program to collect and analyze the contents of coyote scat from parks throughout the city. You would not think that picking up dog poop together could create lasting friendships, but those five are still in touch on Facebook!"
The animal he remembers most this day, however, is the one that he has been trying to trap for the past two years."When I first saw that animal in Whitemud Ravine, I said to myself, 'This is a big coyote.' But then when I took out my binoculars, I realized that I was wrong. This wasn't a big coyote, it was a massive coyote – maybe 45 or 50 pounds, which is way up there at the upper limit of how big these animals can get."
Abercrombie has no intention of doing any harm to this animal when and if he ever catches it. He and University of Alberta biologist Maureen Murray plan to wrap a tracking collar around its neck so that she and others associated with the Urban Coyote Project can track it and several other animals like it.
Murray is a classical musician who recently gave up full-time tromboning so she could collect coyote poop and tracking data that will tell her what this unique species of urban predator eats and does for a living. "The goal of the project," she says, "is to find ways of making sure that people can live with coyotes and minimize the need for eliminating those that get in trouble."
Like wolves, bears, cougars and other predators, coyotes have long made a living in the aspen parkland and short and long grass prairies of western North America feeding on everything from wild berries to jack rabbits and occasionally bigger animals such as deer and small elk. They still do. But while wolves, bears and cougars became occasional visitors to big city natural areas such as those in Edmonton and Calgary, the coyote found a way of expanding its range into Ontario at the turn of the century, into Quebec in the 1940s and into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the 1970s. They can now be found in western Newfoundland, as far north as Kugluktuk on the Arctic coast, and on the well-mown grasses of New York's Central Park.
The animal, in fact, has done so well expanding its range that big, busy cities such as Cleveland, Ohio now have signs up in city parks warning dog walkers and joggers to be aware of the animal.
Here in Edmonton and Calgary there are as many as 1,000 coyotes living in each of the cities' river valleys and natural areas travelling in family groups rather than packs. Females have given birth to pups under the Millcreek ravine staircase and on the perimeters of the Mayfair golf course. Most nights, they can be heard howling and yipping in the North Saskatchewan, Bow and Elbow River valleys.
Up until recently, there seemed to be little to worry about save for the occasional family pet that went missing or the early morning dog walker who was shadowed by a coyote that seemed to be a bit too predatory. Weighing between nine and 16 kilograms, coyotes in western Canada are generally no match for a large pet or a human.
Most people seem to like the idea that there are coyotes living in urban environments. In an ongoing survey that Murray and her colleagues have been conducting, most of those who responded were favourably disposed to sharing natural areas with coyotes. Some suggested that seeing one was a special moment in their lives.
One mom who recently bumped into Murray radio-tracking an animal was so excited about what the biologist was doing that she asked if she would host a birthday party for a group of 12-year-old boys.
"We had them running around with coyote collars on and taught them how to use VHF telemetry to find one another;" says Murray. "They loved it!
But that comfort zone is being tested by a small, but increasing, number of confrontations that have resulted in seriously frayed nerves, more and more missing cats and dogs and a number of nasty bites.
A 19-year-old musician who was killed by two coyotes while she hiked on a popular trail in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Highlands National Park two years ago was a wake-up call. Few people who have heard the story can forget how apparently healthy animals continued to growl and circle the fatally wounded woman even after four hikers came by and threw rocks at them.
Suddenly, the fine line that separated coyotes from more dangerous predators was crossed.
The hysteria that spread across the country didn't help. To allay public fear and the widely held perception that coyotes were also killing livestock, the government of Nova Scotia proposed putting a bounty on the animal. Not long after, an Ottawa-area hunting club advertised a coyote-hunting contest to reduce the number of animals in the region. "Parents are afraid to let their children out because of the coyotes," said City of Ottawa councillor Doug Thompson, who wanted the Ontario government to start culling coyotes.
Here in Edmonton and Calgary, city and wildlife officials are constantly responding to reports of coyotes in residential areas. But the vast majority of the calls don't amount to anything more than a sighting."We get at least three calls a day about coyotes, often many more," says Andy Nestorovich, a Fish and Wildlife officer in Edmonton. "Many people wants us to come in and remove them even if they aren't causing any trouble. What I tell them is that we want those good coyotes. Otherwise, problem coyotes that do cause trouble will move in and replace them."
So-called problem coyotes are the ones that run off with cats and small dogs and refuse to run away when people yell or throw things at them. Typically, but not always, these are the weaker animals that sometimes rely more on garbage, compost and crab apples than they do on rodents and jack rabbits in the natural areas.
No one in Edmonton has been keeping track of the number of bad coyotes living in the city. But in Calgary, which has a similar number of coyotes, data collected by University of Calgary biologist Shelley Alexander and her colleagues is telling.
Of the 1,684 reports of coyotes made to the 311 operator between 2005 and 2008, nine out of 10 of those calls were made by people who simply reported seeing an animal. Eighty-six of those involved a coyote that bit a pet or person or acted in an aggressive way.
Mike Quinn, a University of Calgary biologist who is working with Alexander in mapping the movement of coyotes in Calgary, wasn't surprised when he saw those numbers. "The number of negative interactions seems in line with other 'problem wildlife' reports related to deer, skunks, and squirrels," he says. "The difference with coyotes is that we are talking about something with big teeth that can pose a threat to pets and small children."
While good coyotes outnumber problem coyotes by an overwhelming margin, there is a possibility that the gap could narrow Here in Edmonton, Abercrombie isn't sounding the alarm bells. But at the same time, he believes that it's only a matter of time until more and more of these urban animals will test the limits of their relationship with humans, especially as their numbers grow, their natural habitat shrinks, and people continue poor practices when storing garbage and compost.
"Unlike most predators, which take hundreds if not thousands of years to adapt to new situations, the coyote does it almost on a daily basis," he says. "It's the reason why you find them living in almost every kind of habitat from New York City's Central Park all the way up to the tundra in the Arctic. They have this uncanny ability to exploit resources on a day-to-day basis. And they are very, very smart. That's what makes them so successful."
Animal intelligence, of course, can be measured in many different ways.One test that the coyote keeps passing with flying colours is the one in which it manages to elude being trapped. "If a trapper catches one, he knows that he is on top of his game," says Abercrombie, the day we check the site that had been set for that big coyote that continues to elude him. "The morning I set a trap for this guy, I looked over my shoulder at one point and there he was looking right at me. I knew then that it was unlikely we were going to get him. These animals seem to know when they are being targeted."
Urban coyotes, in fact, know every inch of their territory intimately. They can be comfortable with the idea of people walking through an area they inhabit, and they regularly cross busy roads. But the moment they sense the presence of something that is not routine, they get very suspicious. The faintest odour or sound can make them change course in mid-step. "I've seen this guy back up in and out of his tracks when he senses that something is not right," says Abercrombie. "He tends to avoid anything suspicious."
Born and bred in Alberta, Abercrombie is, by all accounts, very good at what he does. His great uncle, Frank Hudson, was a professional trapper and one of the so-called "crack cowboys" that led the ill conceived Bedaux expedition which set off from Edmonton in 1934 to open a new transportation route between Fort St John and Telegraph Creek, BC. He credits his father, an avid hunter, and his mother, a committed environmentalist for triggering his trapping genes.
"I have always been a history buff and as a young boy I pored over the adventures of early explorers, trappers and First Nations people, so to me it is not just a vocation but a highly romanticized concept of myself," he says. "It's a good thing that I kind of have the knack for trapping and bush living or I would have led a very unfulfilled life."
Here in Edmonton, Abercrombie would rather people get along with coyotes than calling him in to remove them."Most people don't realize it, but coyotes do a lot of good," he says. "If it weren't for them we'd be overrun by rodents, rabbits and deer in the city."
For Murray, working on the Urban Coyote Project has been a challenging, albeit gratifying experience.
Just three days after she stepped off the plane that took her from music school at Dalhousie University in Halifax to Edmonton in the fall of 2009, University of Alberta scientist Colleen Cassady St. Clair, the founder of the Urban Coyote Project, had her out trapping animals.
"I come from Prince Edward Island where there are no large predators," she says. "I was a music student. I really had no idea of what I was getting into. Fortunately, I had Bill and Joe (Abercrombie's nephew) to help and pretty much do it all for me in the beginning. Bill knows everything there is to know about trapping coyotes and other predators."
One of Murray's most memorable encounters was an enchanting one. When it appeared that one of her collared animals was habituated to a spot in Millwoods a few weeks ago, she decided to head out to see if it might be a den.But as she approached the site, the siren of an ambulance passing by blew her cover."All of the sudden these pups started singing," she recalls. "It was funny because they sounded more like cats than the coyotes' classic yipping. I guess they were still too young to make that sound that we all associate with the coyote."
While it is still too early to say what biologists in Edmonton and Calgary have learned about urban coyotes, it does appear that those animals that regularly feed on garbage, compost and family pets in residential areas are not as healthy as their wilder cousins.
These animals tend to be afflicted with mange, a skin disease that results in extensive hair loss.
Perhaps too weak to hunt for rodents, rabbits and deer in the river valley, these sick animals rely instead on food they get from backyard garbage bins and compost piles. One urban coyote that Murray was tracking in Edmonton was so badly weakened by mange and a bad diet that it ended up sleeping in people's backyards. Wildlife control specialists eventually had to come in and euthanize it.
Mike Quinn says there is no possible way that we can remove coyotes from an urban environment.
"In many ways they are like us in their ability to make a living in diverse environs," he says, "Cities are simply another kind of habitat that is working for them." Remove one coyote from an urban natural area, he adds, and another animal will move in quickly to take its place.
For those who have concerns about living so close to these predators, Quinn has some simple advice.
"Don't feed them," he says. "Proper storage of garbage, pet food, etc. is critical. Less obvious attractants include fruit trees and (berry) shrubs. The crabapples in Calgary and Edmonton are prime sources of fall food. We have coyotes here that even climb the trees to feed on the ripe apples." Avoidance of den sites by dog walkers is important as well, he adds, especially during the spring and summer.
"I also think we need to start looking at active 'hazing' activities to create fear and flight in coyotes. I think it is this kind of 'tough love' that will ultimately be the key to living with coyotes in cities."
A little over two years after she started the Urban Coyote project in Edmonton, Colleen Cassady St. Clair still finds it fascinating that there are so many of these predators moving undetected through the city natural environments. Most of the collared animals, she notes, almost never stray into residential areas.
What gratifies her most is how so many agencies and people have volunteered their time to this project.
"In our first field season in 2009, two wonderful undergrads, Adam Cembrowski and Ian Warrington, were assisted by three high school students in the WISEST (Women in Science, Engineering and Science Technology) program to collect and analyze the contents of coyote scat from parks throughout the city. You would not think that picking up dog poop together could create lasting friendships, but those five are still in touch on Facebook!"
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