AGAR: City fails to realize coyotes are vicious predators, not my 'neighbour'

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Toronto is a sanctuary city. No one is happier than your neighbour, Wile E. Coyote.

City Hall posted signs featuring a photo of coyotes in a city park under the headline, “I am your coyote neighbour.”

“Urban greenspace is an important habitat for me. I struggle to keep my family safe from dogs and humans.”

Oh, so the humans and the dogs are the problem?

The Coyote Safety Coalition has tracked over 120 attacks on dogs in Liberty Village and Fort York to date.

They write, at coyotesafetytoronto.ca, “We’re calling for urgent action to stop these attacks before more pets – or people – get hurt.”

So the city struck a committee and came back with the bright-eyed message that Wile E. is struggling to keep his family safe from dogs, but it might help if he wasn’t eating the dogs.

A lot of us struggle to keep our families safe and well fed while paying taxes to someone channeling their inner coyote at City Hall.

The message, which is supposed to be not to feed wildlife reads, “I am a capable provider for my family, and don’t need you to feed me.”

Just another responsible, hard working member of the community. Your neighbour.

People find it economically difficult to live in Mayor Chow’s Toronto, so we would all hate to see Wile E. reduced to standing at a park entrance saying, “Buddy. Can you spare a dog?”

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My colleague at NEWSTALK1010 radio, Deb Hutton said, “What a waste of time, effort and money. Are you glad the 16%-plus tax hike we all had in the past two years is funding something like this?”

A caller to her show named Mark wondered whether he would get dinged for feeding wildlife if a coyote ate his dog.

I am sure he was being facetious, but in Toronto? Possibly.

In a city environment, where we thankfully don’t have bears, wolves and mountain lions, the coyote is a de facto apex predator. Not a neighbour.

Hutton said: “You are not my neighbour. You are an animal the city should be ridding ourselves of. If we have to get rid of them in its most final forms, so be it.”

But when the city undertook to address this problem, it’s news release stated: “This work requires the participation of city staff and residents so the neighbourhood can be restored to co-existing safely with wildlife.”

There is the problem. The city doesn’t get that urban people and wildlife cannot coexist peacefully. Small dogs are easy prey. Thankfully no children have yet been taken.

Yes, the city should fine irresponsible people who feed wildlife, but beyond that, Hutton is right. Humans and predator animals do not belong together in the city.

We built it, so we get to stay. And so do our dogs and small children.

Coyotes have to move their family to the countryside, where God put them in the first place and where the delicious rabbits and squirrels live.

If it is true that, “I am a capable provider for my family,” and to quote another line from the city’s coyote messaging, “I am an omnivore who eats primarily rodents, rabbits, fruit and vegetation,” the countryside seems perfect.

But maybe this isn’t surprising from a city that also plays catch and release with perpetrators of gun violence.

Safety second.