{"id":787303,"date":"2026-07-08T01:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T01:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/787303\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T01:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T01:45:11","slug":"bear-sightings-coyote-encounters-prompt-8-year-old-to-build-wildlife-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/787303\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear sightings, coyote encounters prompt 8-year-old to build wildlife app"},"content":{"rendered":"

An eight-year old has created an app for humans and animals to live together after animal sightings in unexpected places across the country. <\/p>\n

When Kathleen Miller\u2019s husband first told her there was a bear in a tree in their backyard, she thought he must be wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I didn\u2019t believe him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But when she went outside herself, there it was – a black bear, up in the maples. In her 27 years of living in Stouffville, Ont., she had never seen a bear, let alone one behind her house.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect them in the forest,\u201d said Miller. <\/p>\n

Instead, this one had settled in behind a home, bordered by a busy golf course, with a school on the other side and a busy intersection nearby.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just hanging in the tree, looking really comfortable with his hands and legs down,\u201d said Miller. \u201cHe was chewing on some of the smaller branches and so he was just chilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police initially attended, she says, but the bear was left alone until three days later, when officials tranquilized it and safely removed it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kathleen Miller bear A black bear lounges in a tree behind Kathleen Miller\u2019s Stouffville, Ont., home. (Credit: Kathleen Miller) <\/p>\n

\u201cThey said they were going to relocate him in an unnamed forest not close by.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an isolated visit. In recent weeks, there have been multiple reported bear sightings in residential areas north of Toronto, including one near a school in Stouffville and another in Aurora.<\/p>\n

Bear expert Mike McIntosh, of the Bear With Us Sanctuary, told CTV News that bears are more visible this time of year because they\u2019re hungry, looking for food and waiting for berry season to kick in.<\/p>\n

His advice for anyone living near bear habitat: Store food waste well away from decks, and don\u2019t leave garbage bags outside for days at a time. Bird feeders should be put away too. McIntosh says a bear can smell sunflower seeds from two kilometres away.<\/p>\n

Coyote concerns<\/p>\n

Bears aren\u2019t the only animals raising concerns.<\/p>\n

On Sunday evening, a two-year-old boy was in the playground area of Vanier Park in Whitby, Ont., when he was injured in an unprovoked attack by a coyote<\/a>. The child sustained bite injuries to his face before being rescued by a guardian, according to Durham Regional Police. The injuries were not life-threatening.<\/p>\n

Police responded to a separate incident involving a different coyote that same evening. That animal was in distress and was removed by officers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kathleen Miller Kathleen Miller points to the trees behind her home where a black bear lingered for days. <\/p>\n

Police say such incidents are rare and remind the public to keep a safe distance from coyotes. If you encounter one, remain calm, don\u2019t run, make loud noises and wave your arms.<\/p>\n

Whitby has a site where residents can report coyote sightings, and it\u2019s not alone. <\/p>\n

Several Greater Toronto Area municipalities, including Brampton, Mississauga and Oakville, now run public maps of reported coyote sightings, fed by resident reports. But those tools were built to manage conflicts with a single species. They don\u2019t track the many other kinds of wildlife turning up in urban neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n

An 8-year-old\u2019s solution<\/p>\n

The recent stories have been on the mind of eight-year-old Viyoohan Sayooran, who has been following news of coyote incidents in his own community of Markham.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wondered, why is wildlife behaving like this?\u201d said Viyoohan, who just finished Grade 3. What he found out is that humans have been building houses in the spaces where wildlife used to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd some people don\u2019t know how to react when they see wildlife,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

So, with the help of his parents, he decided to try and do something about it \u2014 and, in a sign of the remarkable era we now live in, the eight-year-old was able to quickly design and launch a working app.<\/p>\n

Viyoohan used Anthropic\u2019s Claude AI to help plan his ideas, then turned to Lovable, a Swedish \u201cvibe coding\u201d platform that lets users describe the site they want in plain English and generates the app, which Viyoohan then edited himself over a \u201ccouple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to use AI because AI could help us solve problems much faster than coding … Coding would maybe take weeks for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Urban Wild Watch Wildlife sightings reported by users appear on a map in Urban Wild Watch, an app created by eight-year-old Viyoohan Sayooran of Markham, Ont. <\/p>\n

The result is Urban Wild Watch, found at urbanwildwatch.lovable.app<\/a>. The app features a map where users can press a button to report a sighting, choosing the type of animal, its behaviour and any nearby landmarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s also a button at the top where you can do an orphaned or injured animal sighting,\u201d said Viyoohan. \u201cThere\u2019s also a search button on the maps so you can search locations to report the animal wherever you saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says it can be used in any location anywhere in the world \u2014 and he\u2019s been happy to see a few reports already appearing on the map.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made me feel good. Like my app is being used by many people,\u201d Viyoohan said.<\/p>\n

He even thought through a safety feature: the exact location of a reported animal isn\u2019t shown for an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we show the exact location in the start, then people would start rushing over to that place just to take pictures for social media,\u201d Viyoohan said. \u201cSo the people could get hurt – or the wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Users can report any type of animal, but the main ones so far have been coyotes, foxes and raccoons. Viyoohan hasn\u2019t encountered any of them himself \u2014 but he\u2019s seen the pictures.<\/p>\n

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