Liberty Village, Fort York residents demand action after 6 coyote attacks in 1 night

It’s been months since downtown Toronto residents from Liberty Village and Fort York areas began sharing encounters with coyotes on neighbourhood social media pages.

A group of residents in the area have banded together to form the Coyote Watch Coalition and say they’ve recorded 40 coyote attacks since November. Among the most recent are six attacks that took place within four hours on Monday night between 6:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Ann Selvanayagam was one of two people who encountered an aggressive coyote in June Callwood Park near Fort York that night when she took her five-year-old dog Gregorio for a walk.

“It was 8:30 p.m. … because the coyotes have been rampant since November, every time I come out I am very aware of my surroundings and I did a scan like I usually do. There was a commotion at the front of my building which caught my attention and I looked away for maybe about 5 to 7 seconds. And I looked back and there was a coyote that was starting to lunge towards my dog,” she says.

“I was completely hysterical. Because these things have been happening — two dogs in particular in this area have already been killed — and because my dog is 15 pounds, that has been in the back of my head, that worst-case scenario. And so when he got my dog, the first thing in my head is ‘this is how he’s going to go.’ And so I was just screaming ‘no, no, no’ over and over again trying to kick him, doing whatever I could to push him back.”

Selvanayagam says four other people came to her aid as she tried to fend off the coyote but it wouldn’t back down.

“It wasn’t until a taller man came over to scream at it, that’s what scared off the coyote,” she says.

The encounter left Gregorio with multiple bite and scratch wounds that had to be treated by an emergency veterinarian at a cost of $1,300. Selvanayagam says while at the clinic, she met two other residents whose dogs had suffered coyote bites.

“I was the last one that had come in for the night and [the vet] said that my dog suffered the worst because the other two dogs were bigger dogs,” she says.

Along with being seriously injured, Selvanayagam says Gregorio’s behaviour has changed as well.

“My dog has not slept. The only time he’s able to sleep is when he’s physically on my lap. And he’s not a Velcro dog by any means, so seeing this shift in behaviour is heartbreaking. I haven’t been able to sleep because I close my eyes and I think of the look in the coyote’s eyes. I think of him lunging and it’s like a nightmare that I can’t get away from,” she says, holding back tears.

“[When I bring him out] he’ll come out, he’ll quickly pee and then he wants to sprint back inside. He’s not the same dog at all. I’m just trying to figure out how to get him to feel safe again. I’ve never been that close to death. So even that in itself is like – I don’t know how to work through that.”

Calls for urgent and decisive action

In recent weeks, the city has deployed patrol staff around the Liberty Village and Fort York area. Bylaw enforcement officers have also handed out numerous tickets for off-leash dogs.

The city says it has also conducted “extensive resident engagement,” educating them on how to coexist peacefully with the coyotes. A community consultation was held in November 2024 and a town hall meeting was held Thursday night to discuss strategies to address the problem.

Spadina-Fort York councillor and deputy mayor Ausma Malik is also bringing forward a “targeted Downtown Coyote Strategy” at the next Economic and Community Development Meeting on February 26.  

The Coyote Safety Coalition has been monitoring the steps taken by the city and says patrol officers are ineffective as they seem to be engaging in “passive surveillance.” In a press release, they say officers have been observed sitting inside their vehicles rather than actively patrolling the area.

They also say the focus on ticketing off-leash dog owners is misguided, as 90 per cent of attacks have involved on-leash dogs.

“Communication with bylaw officers has revealed a concerning disconnect in their understanding of the issues,” says Ruby Kooner from the coalition.

“Many officers do not appear to fully acknowledge the severity of the situation, instead attributing the problem to off-leash dogs … making this assumption is both inaccurate and misleading … [and] undermines the urgency of the response required to protect residents and their pets.”

Selvanayagam says the city has taken too long to take any concrete steps to address an issue that has long gotten out of hand, adding that the guidelines they provided are outdated.

“When I spoke to the city official [after the attack] I laid out everything that I did and I asked her ‘what else could I have done?’ And she’s like ‘nothing. You did everything exactly right.’ … the city needs to step up and do something. The level of terror that’s in my body and that I’m trying to get rid of and trying to work through … this could have been avoided,” she says.

“They either need to relocate or euthanize the coyotes at this point. The fact that there was five of us screaming at the coyote and it didn’t have an effect is not okay … I never ever want there to be euthanization in terms of animals, especially since it’s a human problem. But at this point, it’s the health and safety of the community.”

Coyotes have become habituated to humans

In January, Liberty Village and Fort York residents gathered together to demand the coyotes be relocated away from the densely populated urban areas they are now using as hunting grounds downtown.

At the time Spadina Fort-York MPP Chris Glover cited a Ministry of Natural Resources policy that prevents moving coyotes more than a kilometre away.

“If we can find a sanctuary, then maybe there’s a way to get them into a sanctuary that would go beyond the kilometre,” he said.

Many residents have also been pushing for a humane solution.

“We want to relocate the coyotes safely. They are a victim of this situation just as we are and it’s not fair to penalize them,” says Kooner.

However, a wildlife expert says discussions about relocation or moving the coyotes to a sanctuary are misguided. He believes this particular group of coyotes has become habituated to humans after being pushed out of their habitat due to the development taking place around the area.

“Based on the behaviours that have been described to me, it sounds very much like the problem is they’ve completely lost their fear of humans,” says Dr. Dennis Murray, biology professor and Canada Research Chair in Integrative Wildlife Conservation at Trent University.

Whether intentional or not, Murray believes the coyotes have been positively reinforced by the availability of food — be it garbage or, in some unfortunate cases, pets. This has broken down the barriers they typically have with respect to humans and domestic animals.

“When that happens, it’s kind of like a cascade. It just keeps going and could get worse and worse and worse … they’re basically used to being positively reinforced when they interact with humans. So it’s virtually impossible to get rid of that behavior,” he says.

According to Murray, the only logical solution in such cases is to euthanize the animals.

“I do think that the quickest, the simplest solution would be to remove those animals … the best solution would be for a trapper to capture those animals and then Toronto Animal Services could come in and humanely euthanize those animals,” he says.

Murray understands the opposition to this opinion but says now that this has become a public safety issue, it is past the point of a non-lethal approach. He adds that it is also a liability issue for the municipality.

“If I had a dog that was chewed up by a coyote and it cost me $3,000 to fix the dog, I’d be talking to a lawyer about approaching the municipality to pay for that. Let’s imagine a situation where a child was to get bitten and injured by a coyote. I mean, it’s unfathomable that we would turn a blind eye,” he says.

Relocation is not the appropriate solution, opines Murray, because moving animals into an unknown environment is not reasonable.

“These animals are used to living in an urban environment. You’re going to put them in a wilderness area, they won’t know how to fend for themselves,” he says.

“In all likelihood, they will be dropped into an area that’s already occupied by coyotes, which means that those existing animals won’t take very kindly to having these new animals around and probably will try to kill them.”

He adds that even after relocation, the coyotes could move out to another urban area.

“They may move to other areas where they think that they can get food from humans and cause problems for someone else. So that really is not a logical solution. All it is is just punting the problem onto other people potentially,” he says.

As far as the discussion of finding a sanctuary that could take them in, Murray believes that would be inhumane.

“These animals are used to roaming freely. That’s what they’ve been doing for their entire lives. So we’re going to put them in a cage for the rest of their lives and be happy that this is a logical solution. I personally don’t feel that that’s appropriate,” he says.

Murray acknowledges that it is possible that a new pack of coyotes may move into the area once the old one is removed, but he says the city needs to work with residents to ensure they do not become habituated to humans again.

He says bylaws need to be strengthened and enforced around feeding wildlife, garbage disposal and safe use of greenspaces with increased monitoring in problem areas to ensure that coyotes maintain a healthy fear and distance from humans.

Murray adds that he is concerned that the appropriate experts have not been engaged to effectively deal with the current and ongoing problem with the animals in downtown Toronto.

The City of Toronto says they have been working with a number of knowledgeable groups and wildlife experts from the Ministry of Natural Resources, Coyote Watch Canada, Toronto Wildlife Centre

“Toronto Animal Services is receiving information from people who are not professionally trained in terms of dealing with coyotes … certainly they’re well-intentioned to try to come up with solutions that don’t necessarily harm the coyotes. But these sorts of solutions are not accepted in the scientific community,” he says.

Coun. Malik adds that she has been working to address this situation with “seriousness and urgency.”

“I share the community’s increasing concerns for the safety of residents and their pets and have established coordination between community members and the City’s Animal Services staff for immediate actions. I am actively working with senior city staff to escalate response, explore all solutions and provide next steps for resolution without delay,” she says.

Selvanayagam says that’s not good enough.

“I’m contemplating moving at this point … the level of fear for me is not worth it. For me to live in fear because of wild animals is just not any way to live,” she says.

“I would like a timeline and actionable items from the city. Yeah. At this point there’s enough conversations happening, we need action. This is ridiculous and it needs to end.”