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A coyote has interrupted Carla Fehr\u2019s evening dog walk almost every night this month.<\/p>\n
It happens close to the riverbank along the Meewasin Trail near her home in the City Park neighbourhood. She\u2019s walking her chocolate lab Maple and then all of a sudden, a coyote crosses their path.<\/p>\n
Just this week, she saw it emerge from the riverbank foliage with a goose in its mouth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of fun to see, and it\u2019s the reality of where we live,\u201d Fehr said. \u201cWe live along a riverbank that wildlife uses. And the coyote obviously has a good source of food while there are still some geese around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fehr said the coyote encounters aren\u2019t threatening but she would want the city to take action if it becomes aggressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt didn’t seem that interested in me,\u201d she said. \u201cOf course, as soon as I saw it, I started moving off the trail towards the road where there’s more light as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports of coyote sightings have increased in recent weeks, according to the City of Saskatoon. A video posted to social media on Nov. 26 shows a coyote with white fur roaming Kinsmen Park near the riverbank.<\/p>\n
The city has received 71 reports of coyote sightings in the city so far this year, a steep decline from last year, when sighting reports surged to 214. The drop is likely due to the city enacting a ban on feeding wildlife in Saskatoon, said Cate Francis, the city\u2019s park superintendent for biological services and urban forestry.<\/p>\n
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Saskatoon’s riverbank park spaces are filled with wildlife, like this fox Carla Fehr saw near the Broadway Bridge, Nov. 26, 2025. (Carla Fehr\/Submitted)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were several hotspots [in 2024] where we noted feeding of wildlife occurring,\u201d Francis said. \u201cThe new no-feeding bylaw appears to have really helped address those issues and get those coyote behaviors back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis said no one has been fined under the new bylaw, but it has helped enforcement. <\/p>\n
In May, the city amended the Animal Control Act to \u201cprohibit the feeding of wildlife on all public or private property in Saskatoon\u201d (with an exception for above-grade bird feeders on private property).<\/p>\n
City dwellers<\/p>\n
People should be used to seeing coyotes in the city, said Bonnie Dell, executive director at the Wildlife Rescue Society of Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the alarm comes because it’s the one predator we see here,\u201d Dell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are born and raised in the city. The city noises, the noises people make, the clapping of hands, honking of horns, they’ve heard it their whole life. That’s nothing. That doesn’t alarm them, that’s just part of their environment. They live side by side with us in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
When encountering a coyote, don\u2019t run or panic, but make yourself very big, put your arms up and speak in a loud, firm voice, Dell said. Or carry a plastic bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you swoop it through the air, it fills with air and it makes a noise that they have never heard before,\u201d Dell said. \u201cThey’ve never seen such a thing and they’re terrified and they take off, and it’s humane. It reinforces not to get close to people, which is important for any urban animals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city has posted signs in the City Park neighbourhood to warn people about the coyotes. The city won\u2019t take action until a coyote shows signs of abnormal behaviour.<\/p>\n
Coyotes are part of the natural ecosystem and help maintain rodent populations, Francis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe calls that we’re getting, a lot of them are near natural areas near the river bank and it’s where we expect to see them,\u201d Francis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time of year it starts to get darker earlier, which means you’re walking your dog maybe in the evening. They’re going wider for food because there’s maybe less abundant food or different food sources for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-313343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313343","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=313343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}