On a Saturday night last November, Ruby Kooner and her 13-year-old dog Amber set out for their routine walk before bedtime.
Normally it was a quick outing, on a leash, along a path outside Ms. Kooner’s condominium in Ordnance Triangle Park, a community wedged between two rail corridors near Toronto’s historic Fort York site.
As Amber, a 17-pound mix resembling a Maltipoo, did her business, Ms. Kooner looked down to retrieve a bag. “Two coyotes came out of nowhere and ambushed us,” she recalled. “I was in shock. Mentally you don’t understand what’s happening.”
Ruby Kooner, with her dog Luna, faced off against two coyotes at this Toronto park with another pet, Amber.
When the coyotes started biting her dog, Kooner was jolted out of her shock. She scooped Amber up and kicked at the animals, which kept advancing.
“I was screaming at a level I never screamed at,” she said.
Three women walking the path intervened and helped ward off the coyotes. Ms. Kooner rushed her bloody dog to an emergency animal hospital, where she was treated for deep puncture wounds and put on antibiotics for the next three weeks.
Two days after this, Amber went into sepsis. She died in an animal hospital a week later.
“It was a month of chaos,” Ms. Kooner said. “I couldn’t come to terms with it for a long time.”
Amber’s death was one in a series of alarming coyote incidents that set residents on edge across several downtown Toronto neighbourhoods – Liberty Village, Fort York and a swath near King Street West – between October, 2024 and May, 2025.
“People were living in terror,” Ms. Kooner said. She’d see neighbours carrying flashlights, horns and sticks, their dogs outfitted in protective vests studded with spikes.
After Amber’s death, Ms. Kooner formed the Coyote Safety Coalition, working with other locals to map and catalogue incidents in the area.
In total, the group tallied 132 encounters, beginning retroactively in January, 2024, when coyote run-ins were still infrequent. By the fall, incidents began intensifying, hitting a peak in February, 2025, before dropping in May when the group ended its count. There were reports of stalking, chasing and lunging, numerous attacks on dogs, as well as a runner reportedly bitten on the calves in Trillium Park on the eastern edge of Ontario Place. By the group’s count, coyotes killed four dogs in their neighbourhoods, with Amber the first casualty.
There were days when locals reported multiple aggressive confrontations in the span of hours. Scared and frustrated, some accused the city of inaction and minimizing the problem.
Throughout the months-long crisis, city staff tried numerous approaches. Among the efforts, they deployed animal control and bylaw officers to try and fend off the coyotes. They stepped up enforcement targeting food waste left out, which entices wildlife. Brighter lighting was installed and fences mended, in hopes of dissuading the animals from residential pockets.
The situation culminated last May when Critter Gitter, a hunter-trapper outfit hired by the city, euthanized a mated pair of coyotes. City staff called the move a “last resort after all options were exhausted.” Attacks have since dropped, though locals still spot other coyotes often.
The tense months provoked heated debates about the place of wildlife in the city, about who matters more: Domesticated dogs or coyotes? City dwellers or urban wildlife?
The city’s stance is one of co-existence – that all these species belong here.
“Co-existence is when humans and wildlife adapt to share space. This approach recognizes that both require their respective needs to be met and that there is an acceptable level of risk to living alongside each other,” reads the city’s newly updated Coyote Co-existence and Response Strategy.
According to the report, coyotes are vital to the ecosystem, keeping rodent populations in check. Ranging through green spaces, rail corridors and vacant areas that serve as “buffer zones” between humans and wildlife, coyotes normally avoid contact with people, the report says. On the issue of unsafe encounters, the report points to human carelessness, particularly food left out, inadvertently and on purpose. This leaves urban coyotes coming to associate people with handouts, and losing their fear.
The strategy stresses public education and prevention “through collective participation” to keep conflicts in check.
The city’s approach has raised questions about what it means to live side by side with coyotes in a dense metropolis. In a city this packed, how to maintain the boundary between humans, their numerous pets and urban wildlife? Once coyotes get used to humans and grow bold, once encounters start flaring up in bustling condominium communities, what does co-existence mean then?
When Ms. Kooner looks back on the situation in her area last winter – a dog walker confronted by a coyote just outside his condo’s lobby doors; coyotes following pets between rows of townhouses – she questions the approach. “To me, co-existence always meant that we’re going to see them sometimes, and that I always keep my distance,” she said. “They need a better scale of understanding when co-existence is not possible.”
Across numerous neighbourhoods – Etobicoke to the west, Scarborough to the east, North York and the southern reaches in Ontario Place – Torontonians are reporting coyote encounters. Complaints are multiplying to 311, a phone number and online service for residents reporting various issues to the city.
Reports of coyote sightings more than doubled between 2019 and last year, from 1,263 to 2,584, according to a city report from June. Complaints about coyotes stalking, snarling and lunging also shot up, from 73 in 2019 to 218 in the first five months of this year alone. So did reports of bites and attacks on dogs, which skyrocketed from 20 in 2020 to 91 last year.
Alarming encounters have been reported further afield. In June, a 12-year-old boy was sitting in front of his house in Nobleton, north of Toronto, waiting for a friend to arrive for his birthday party. He turned to face a coyote, which clamped down on his thigh, leaving puncture wounds. The boy fled into the house and was later treated with antibiotics and rabies shots.
With troubling incidents like this, urban coyotes are driving a wedge between locals, animal advocates and those tasked with managing wildlife in cities.
Some dog owners feel they’ve been left to fend for themselves, carrying whistles and pepper spray, or dressing their pets in barbed gear, or only walking in groups. Some whose dogs have been mauled feel betrayed by officials, never bargaining on these scenarios in a big city.
At the same time, animal advocates argue that coyotes have a place in this urban ecosystem, alongside raccoons, foxes and other wildlife. As they see it, coyotes grow emboldened because of human negligence. Some blame dogs running off leash, which leave coyotes in defence mode for their pups. They point to un-scooped dog feces, which brings rats, which then attract coyotes. In other words, bad human behaviour begets bad animal behaviour.
Others criticize development for encroaching on green spaces where urban coyotes live and normally keep to themselves. Like a good number of Torontonians, Ms. Kooner believes the province’s destruction of natural habitat at Ontario Place early last October displaced coyotes and led to the attacks in her neighbourhood, which began ticking up the same month.
“If you want us to co-exist,” she said, “you cannot disrupt the ecosystem in which we co-exist.”
The coyotes ranging through Toronto are Eastern coyotes. Hybridized with wolves, they’re larger than the kind found out west.
Opportunistic and omnivorous, they forage for berries, scavenge carrion and garbage, and hunt rabbits and small rodents. Emboldened urban coyotes will also hunt smaller pets, according to Brent Patterson, a large mammal research scientist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources’ wildlife research and monitoring section.
“They will eat a small dog, or they’ll eat a cat,” said Dr. Patterson, whose research group has studied coyotes for more than 20 years.
On the rise in coyote encounters in the city, he stressed that even a few bad actors putting out food for wildlife can “alter the coyotes’ behaviour and really spoil it” – and that it’s difficult to change this once the animals get used to seeing humans as the source of an easy meal.
“Coyotes are smart and sassy and when they don’t get the handouts they are used to, they will often approach people and pester or nip or even go after small pets.”
Dr. Patterson said it’s also possible pups may be learning lessons from elders: “It could be that each successive generation in an area is becoming a little more comfortable around people.”
Although the city doesn’t track overall coyote numbers, residents are asking why coyotes ranging through residential neighbourhoods can’t be sterilized or relocated. Each approach poses problems, researchers say.
Relocation can lead to strife between newly introduced animals and established packs, or spread parasites and disease. Manual sterilization is labour intensive: Coyotes would need to be trapped, handled, spayed or neutered and given time to recover before being released. In a city, traps could ensnare dogs, cats, raccoons, even people.
The city said staffers will monitor problem behaviour but would only euthanize as a last resort, and only in certain cases – for example, if a coyote bites or scratches a human unprovoked, but not a pet.
With culling, sterilization and relocation of coyotes largely off the table, residents are really left with one option: co-existing.
“It’s such a new problem, it’s become a problem in the GTA in the last 10 years or so,” said Dennis Murray, a Trent University biology professor who’s studied the animals since 1987 and holds the Canada Research Chair in integrative wildlife conservation, bioinformatics and ecological modelling.
“The coyotes are here to stay in various parts of the city,” he said. “There’s going to need to be a concerted effort to figure out how to deal with these cases.”
On Canada Day last year, Etobicoke retirees Doug and Mary Youngson set out with their rescue dogs, Kahlua (from Cozumel) and Mai Tai (from Taiwan). They headed to Princess Margaret Park, set within a residential neighbourhood.
Walking along a trail with their leashed dogs, they spotted a coyote. They yelled and waved their arms but the animal kept advancing. Scanning around, they saw four more coyotes on either side.
“I said, ‘We have a big problem,’” Mr. Youngson recalled.
Surrounded, both dogs wriggled off their leashes. When Kahlua ran at the approaching coyote, the other four pursued him into an overgrown area. Mr. Youngson ran behind, finding his dog badly bitten and surrounded by six coyotes. He grabbed Kahlua by the choke collar and backed up out of the brush, amassing cuts and bruises, plus bites from his panicked dog in the struggle.
“It was screaming and yelling,” said Ms. Youngson, who was being circled by two coyotes as she held on to Mai Tai. “It was not good. It was a frenzy.”
Kahlua the Mexican rescue dog, shaved and bandaged after a coyote attack last year.Courtesy of Mary Youngson
Suffering puncture wounds to the neck, chest, back, abdomen and tail, Kahlua underwent multiple surgeries and a blood transfusion, with hundreds of staples and stitches zigzagging across his body.
Today, the dog puts up resistance before walks or pulls to return to the car. The couple sticks to open areas – no woods – and packs an arsenal: pepper spray, a whistle and walking stick. Ms. Youngson said her head is always on a swivel, scanning for wildlife.
Since the pandemic, coyote sightings have only multiplied where they live. Coyotes trotting along side streets. A coyote devouring a rabbit on their front lawn. This summer, one approached them in a busy parking lot at Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Etobicoke. A police officer ordered the two back in their car, blaring his siren to scare the animal away.
Even if bold, habituated coyotes are a man-made problem, Ms. Youngson said it’s the city’s responsibility to keep the public safe. She would like to see city staff take a more active wildlife management role, “not just train us to avoid” coyotes.
To her husband, co-existence feels like the city telling residents to learn to live with it.
“Co-existence would be great,” he said, “but I don’t think coyotes understand what that means.”
A portrait of a majestic, chestnut-hued creature opens the city’s new Coyote Co-existence and Response Strategy.
“Coyotes have adapted well to urban environments,” the report begins. “It is normal to see coyotes in residential, industrial, and commercial areas in addition to green space.”
There is much education on the animals’ diets, anatomy, reproductive cycles, habitats and behaviour – normal and problematic. Another section focuses on “aversion conditioning,” using assertive vocal and bodily cues to deter a coyote. Tips include: Be big and loud, swing around a walking stick or cane, throw pebbles, shine a flashlight, open and loudly snap a coloured garbage bag, deploy an air horn and so on.
The city’s strategy involved a review of best practices and research from comparable jurisdictions, senior communications co-ordinator Shane Gerard said in an e-mailed response. Wildlife experts with “extensive field-based expertise” reviewed the city’s response to the incidents in Fort York and Liberty Village; their recommendations helped inform the updated strategy, Mr. Gerard said. Asked about these experts, he said they had asked the city not to disclose their names.
Liberty Village Park still has warning signs up months after the city euthanized a pair of coyotes that had been raising alarm in the neighbourhood and Fort York.
One group that is acknowledged for help developing the strategy is Coyote Watch Canada, an animal advocacy organization. The group offers “ready-to-use” templates for local governments facing coyote issues, leaning heavily on the co-existence model. Through the spate of attacks in Liberty Village and Fort York, the city deployed a team from Coyote Watch Canada. Over 10 days, they collected evidence and practised aversion conditioning with the animals.
Founding executive director Lesley Sampson insists it worked – that individual coyotes backed off each time they were confronted by the team. But what drew the animals out again and again, Ms. Sampson maintains, was food left out by humans – in some cases intentionally. There were other attractants too, she said: dog feces, rats, broken fences that left coyotes unhindered, dogs bounding off leash contributing to conflicts.
“Unfortunately, aversion conditioning does not change problematic human behaviour. And that is the root of what went on there,” Ms. Sampson said.
Still, in a gritty urban maze of enticements – overflowing garbage bins, fragrant restaurant dumpsters, litter strewn across parks and homeless encampments – how to prevent coyotes from coming to view humans as a source of food? How to prevent them from feeling threatened by dogs, in a city full of dogs? Is it possible to maintain the boundaries necessary for co-existence here?
Ms. Sampson thinks it can be done, stressing education and the public’s role in prevention.
“Co-existence, the only way for that to thrive is to have engagement from community. It always comes at the heart of the people,” she said. “It’s a daily effort, it’s a daily mindset to commit to co-existence.”
Across numerous parks, bright yellow “coyote hotspot” signs now alert residents. “I am your coyote neighbour,” read other placards, written in the voice of a hypothetical coyote. “I struggle to keep my family safe from dogs and humans.”
The signs have proven controversial. Online, some Torontonians approved, saying development is encroaching into coyote territory. Others found the messaging reckless and naive.
“It’s basically saying, ‘Walk your dog at your own risk,’” Ms. Youngson said. Her husband said the visuals on some of the signage – two coyote pups trotting alongside an adult – call to mind “a Disney movie.”
Mr. Youngson also criticized some of the city’s suggestions for residents staring down a coyote – the aversion conditioning or “hazing” techniques.
“Have you ever tried to walk a dog that wants to either flee or fight?” he said. “Then you’re going to hold on to the dog, go into your pocket or purse, pull out a plastic bag and snap it? With one hand? It’s ridiculous. What are we doing?”
More broadly, wildlife researcher Dr. Murray said he knew of no scientific evidence to back the idea that hazing can recondition aggressive coyotes to be “good coyotes again” long-term. He questioned the notion of residents living in harmony with hostile coyotes in densely populated communities.
“There are these extreme cases where animals have been completely habituated to humans. They’ve been fed. They’ve lost those barriers,” said Dr. Murray, who reviewed the Liberty Village and Fort York cases. “All evidence suggests those animals need to be disposed of. They need to be removed from the environment.”
On a May morning two years ago, Agata Piskunowicz and her dog Kira left for their walk through High Park, a sprawling green gem in Toronto’s west end.
Ms. Piskunowicz let Kira, an 11-pound toy poodle mix, off-leash down a wide, unfenced path – a costly mistake, she acknowledges.
Up on a hillside, something caught her eye: a dog with a “really strange” silhouette racing down toward her and Kira.
“This thing, which I thought is someone’s dog, comes running straight for her,” she recalled. “It grabs her by the neck and shakes her violently.”
She began to yell aggressively, hoping to ward the coyote off. Instead, the animal bounded into the bush with Kira in its mouth.
Ms. Piskunowicz screamed frantically for help from passersby. She’d eventually discover that her dog had escaped and made it to a busy intersection, only to tumble under an SUV. Two good Samaritans ferried the bleeding poodle to a nearby animal hospital. Kira was treated for puncture wounds to the throat, neck and back, a hematoma in her eyes from the shaking, and bruising to her stomach from the car collision.
A year and a half passed before Ms. Piskunowicz and her partner returned to the park with Kira after her recovery. Today, the dog wears protective armour: a turquoise coyote vest studded with chrome spikes. She’s kept on a leash and stays close.
The experience left Ms. Piskunowicz with deep humility about urban nature and her place among the wildlife: “It’s an environment I’m deciding to put myself and my dog into, versus expecting it to be manicured to what I need.”
But she sees her situation in the wilds of High Park as quite apart from those whose pets were hurt in Liberty Village and Fort York – busy downtown neighbourhoods where expectations of safety are rightly higher, Ms. Piskunowicz feels.
Still, she doesn’t have the answers.
“This is a fine balance of how we integrate ourselves into a world of theirs. But they’re clearly leaving their world, into ours.”
With files from Chen Wang
Illustration by Kathleen Fu
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