{"id":152537,"date":"2025-09-18T11:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T11:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/152537\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T11:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T11:30:07","slug":"vaughan-coyote-problems-residents-speak-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/152537\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaughan coyote problems: Residents speak out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surveillance footage captured a pack of coyotes sharing a meal in the driveway of a home in the Thornhill area in Vaughan. <\/p>\n

Vaughan residents are voicing concern over a growing number of coyote incidents, some involving pets and young children, and are calling on the city to take action. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s out of control,\u201d said Lee-att Shemesh, who lives in the area of Bathurst Street and Clark Avenue. <\/p>\n

While there have been coyote incidents across the city, the problem seems to be most concentrated in the Thornhill area. Of the 386 coyote sightings in Vaughan so far this year, 240 have been in Ward 5, according to the city. There were 315 sightings in the ward in all of 2024 and just 77 in 2023. <\/p>\n

Shemesh said coyotes have visited her yard on multiple occasions recently, with some of those incidents captured on video. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just starting to prepare breakfast and lunches, and then I heard a lot of barking. I hear something going on. I look out the window, where I see a coyote standing right outside my kitchen window,\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n

Video from her home surveillance system shows three coyotes running up and down the outside of the fence, while another camera catches one of them finding a way in through a narrow gap and attempting to snatch the small barking dog. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne was actually smart enough \u2013 because I actually saw them on all the cameras \u2013 he actually ran back to the front of the house, around to the other side and came into the backyard through a five-inch gap between two fences,\u201d Shemesh said. <\/p>\n

Just days ago a coyote turned up in her yard again, this time while her 10-year-old daughter was playing there. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was hiding. My daughter was on the deck with my dog. I was just kind of in and out, and the coyote was sitting and waiting for an opportunity to get to my daughter or get to the dog,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Coyote attacks dog in Vaughan A coyote tries to get to a small dog in Vaughan after slipping through a five-inch hole in the home’s fence. <\/p>\n

Shemesh, who moved to the neighbourhood from a more rural area a few months ago, said she\u2019s never had problems with wildlife like this before. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would see coyotes, every now and then a fox, but we\u2019ve never actually had them come close to the house,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Now, she said, she\u2019s scared to walk her dog in the area. If she does, she carries a baseball bat, pepper spray and a bear horn. <\/p>\n

\u201cI look like I\u2019m going to war,\u201d she said, calling the situation \u201ca disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she\u2019s worried some of her neighbours might start taking things into their own hands if the city doesn\u2019t do more and added it\u2019s not fair she isn\u2019t able to use her backyard out of fear for her family\u2019s safety. <\/p>\n

Revi Laufer has lived in the area for years and said coyotes used to be spotted \u201conce in a blue moon,\u201d but the problem has grown steadily worse over the past five years or so. <\/p>\n

\u201cPets have been killed, and parents are terrified of having their kids walking to and from school because kids have been chased. It\u2019s a problem,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople don\u2019t sit in their backyards anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laufer said she\u2019s taken to driving her small dog to out-of-area parks for walks so they avoid running into coyotes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all over. It\u2019s gotten really out of hand,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Coyote pack caught on cam in driveway<\/p>\n

Video captured in the area recently and provided to CP24 highlights the problem. In it, a pack of at least eight or nine coyotes is seen fighting over a meal \u2013 possibly a small animal \u2013 in a driveway. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like that,\u201d Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca said at a working session of council<\/a> Wednesday, referring to the video. \u201cI\u2019ve never experienced in all of my years living in Vaughan, separate and apart from being mayor, the number of residents who are telling us that they have actually had their household pets injured or, in some cases, killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Vaughan coyotes A pack of coyotes scamper around a driveway, fighting over food in this screen grab from surveillance footage taken outside a Thornhill home Tuesday September 9, 2025. <\/p>\n

The city adopted a coyote strategy in 2022 that focused on public education. Staff said that while coyote sightings have increased since then, they still believe the program is working. <\/p>\n

But Ward 5 Coun. Gila Martow said she wants to see the city doing more. <\/p>\n

At Wednesday\u2019s meeting she moved a motion to have city staff explore the possibility of hiring licenced trappers to deal with problem coyotes, as some other municipalities have done. <\/p>\n

The motion passed and staff are expected to report back to council on the move next week. <\/p>\n

Speaking with CP24, Martow likened the solution to that employed by the City of Toronto to deal with two problem coyotes in Liberty Village. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to deal with it before it before, you know, there\u2019s tragic circumstances,\u201d Martow said. <\/p>\n

York Regional Police confirmed that officers attended at least two incidents in York Region this summer for reports of children bitten by coyotes. One of those incidents occurred on Aug. 16 near Clarke Avenue and Springfield Way in Ward 5, where residents have been reporting the bulk of the sightings. <\/p>\n

A pet owner herself, Martow said she loves animals and doesn\u2019t want to see coyotes harmed unnecessarily. But she said many residents are frustrated and at their wit\u2019s end. <\/p>\n

Moving coyotes not a good option: experts<\/p>\n

Experts say the problem is complex, with new coyotes moving into an area if another is removed. <\/p>\n

Dr. Brent Patterson, a research scientist with Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, told council Wednesday that it makes no sense to capture and move coyotes unless you\u2019re taking them a considerable distance away. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf they chose to, they might be back where you originally caught them from before the crew that made the move was home having their dinner,\u201d he said. \u201cSo 10 or 15 kilometers (for) a coyote is something that they could start to navigate, probably in a day or less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, he said, the coyotes could just become a problem in the place where they\u2019re moved, and new coyotes could move into the area where they were removed from. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as we know, most of the landscape in Ontario is occupied by existing territorial family groups of coyotes or wolves, depending on where you put them. And so you\u2019re probably going to be putting them into somebody else\u2019s home or territory, and you could create some strife that way,\u201d he said. \u201cSo for those primary reasons, and some others as well, we generally don\u2019t view relocation as being a tool that we really want to have in the toolbox when it comes to resolving that conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Vaughan Coyote statistics <\/p>\n

Lesley Sampson of Coyote Watch Canada told council Wednesday that even if you do move a coyote, new ones may move in as quickly as a few months later. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s scent trails that are left behind by individual coyotes. So new coyotes that are dispersing will follow those scent trails,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Dealing with the problem, Sampson said, should involve an examination of the landscape in Ward 5 and an assessment of possible food sources that humans might be unwittingly making available to coyotes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes Ward 5 unique? What brings wildlife to this area? And so looking at the uniqueness of the landscape, and then the availability of what\u2019s already there naturally, the food sources, and then maybe folks that need more guidance in terms of how they might encourage unwillingly or unknowingly, wildlife to visit their backyards,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

City staff said the most effective way to deal with the problem is to double down on \u201ccoexistence strategies\u201d such as educating the public, proactive monitoring and working with local stakeholders. <\/p>\n

While the problem is difficult, Del Duca said he wants residents to know that he is listening. <\/p>\n

In a statement to CP24, he said he knows residents are feeling \u201cexhausted and frustrated by the problem and that\u2019s why he requested the item be added to the agenda Wednesday, and why he seconded Martow\u2019s motion to have staff report back on hiring trappers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize this is a very serious issue \u2013 one we do not take lightly. My council colleagues and I will continue to work with city staff to solve this problem,\u201d Del Duca said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surveillance footage captured a pack of coyotes sharing a meal in the driveway of a home in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-152537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}