Saskatoon contends with spike in coyote sightings

WATCH: The City of Saskatoon is updating its approach to wildlife to address a rise in coyote activity in city limits.

The city is moving forward with an overhaul of its approach to coyotes in Saskatoon city limits.

City council voted to approve recommendations from administration to create a bylaw to ban feeding wildlife in the city, working towards hiring a wildlife specialist and launching an awareness campaign.

“I talked to one resident who [was] trapped in a stranger’s garage for half an hour because a coyote went after her and her dog, and the only escape she could get off the riverbank was to run into a complete stranger’s garage and shut the door,” Coun. Randy Donauer said.

“[She] did not want to come up for about half an hour. And finally, the resident came, introduced himself to her and said, ‘the coyote is gone.‘”

Donauer said people in his ward are routinely walking with baseball bats or golf clubs on themselves for protection, with some even taking a can of bear spray in case a coyote approaches them.

According to a city report, coyote sightings have been on the rise.

Last year, the parks department received 214 calls about coyotes, up from 16 in 2022 and 78 in 2023.

Donauer said the situation reached a “crescendo” last week when a resident called him about a run-in the resident’s wife had with a coyote. The man told Donauer two coyotes attacked their dog near Spadina Crescent.

“She tried to pull her dog away and run away [and] could not get the coyotes off her dog,” he said. “The only way this seven-or-eight-months pregnant lady can get the coyote off her dog, who were biting her dog and attacking it, were to run into traffic first thing in the morning during the morning commute.”

In that instance, police were called, and the coyote was euthanized.

Administration says “a variety of ecological and human factors may have contributed to the high numbers of coyote calls in 2024, such as weather, prey population” as well as Saskatoon residents providing food.

The province passed legislation in 2021 to prohibit feeding wildlife — defined as a bear, cougar, coyote or wolf or any other prescribed wildlife — but Saskatoon didn’t have a bylaw it could enforce.

Jan Shadick, the executive director of Living Sky Wildlife Rehabilitation told council she doesn’t doubt there is a coyote issue in the city, but feels administrators should instead consider a pause to any intervention.

“I didn’t, at least, see any evidence that the population of coyote has actually risen in the city,” Shadick said. “I don’t think that reaction is a helpful response to a situation when we don’t actually know what the problem is.”

Shadick said it is natural for wildlife populations to rise and fall, and for more animals to appear within city limits. She didn’t want a temporary bump to be met with a permanent solution.

“Human intolerance of wildlife does not mean that the wildlife is necessarily a problem,” she added.

Ultimately, council decided to align itself with other prairie cities and prohibit feeding wildlife.

It’s also looking for a contractor to provide the services of wildlife specialists — adding components such as aversion conditioning and targeted euthanasia to the city’s current education and coexistence approach.