Killing All The Stanley Park Coyotes Is A Negligent Moral Mistake
As I write this on a cold, dark Tuesday night on September 7, 2021, the City of Vancouver has stepped to the side for the British Columbia provincial government to begin their widespread trapping and killing of an estimated 35 coyotes that have been living in the city’s largest nature park. Seven coyotes have already been killed this past year. This would cause a total of 42 Stanley Park Coyotes to be killed in the city.
The reason? A recent rash of coyote-on-human attacks have occurred. Over 40 incidents have happened where coyotes have negatively interacted with humans, with many resulting in injuries on humans.
The City of Vancouver and Vancouver Parks Board have quietly deferred to the British Columbia provincial government to set ‘live traps’ to catch what appears to be the entire Stanley Park coyote population. Their intent is to “euthanize” all the Stanley Park Coyotes.
SIGN THEIR PETITION: https://www.change.org/p/save-vancouver-s-coyotes/
Remember Coyotes From Other Parts Of Vancouver Will Begin To Migrate Back Into Stanley Park
Despite this being loudly criticized in what has been described in many online platforms as socially and morally tone deaf by applying a callous brute force killing mandate, both the province and city executive leaders remain steadfast that the 35 remaining coyotes must be caught and “euthanized”.
The term ‘euthanasia‘ is defined by Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary essentially as a medically-assisted merciful and compassionate death.
eu·tha·na·sia https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/euthanasia
The act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (such as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy
Euphemistically calling the killing of all 42 Stanley Park Coyotes as “euthanasia” is simply human misguidance. The term deliberately ameliorates and embellishes the act of killing a coyote for their existence. For being an evolutionally innate predator. Heck, the canine species are all innate predators.
How Did Humans Let The Stanley Park Coyotes Get So Brave?
Before I explain what I consider the tone-deafness of both the Province, Vancouver Parks Board and executive stewardship of the City of Vancouver, let’s look at how this is coming to a fatal outcome for the 42 Stanley Park Coyotes (7 have already been killed during the past year).
As the city’s population has remained mostly indoors during the pandemic for over one year, the lack of regular visitors to Stanley Park have caused a number of predictable changes to the park’s wildlife. Wildlife encroachment into areas that were traditionally frequented by visitors and tourists was predictable.
The Vancouver Park Board failed to predictively model for inevitable movement into human-deserted areas of the park. This ain’t rocket science.
Any animal behaviorist worth their education would have told them so. Heck, even dog owners know this. Google ‘Covid Making My Dogs Crazy’ and you’ll see many articles of dog parents discussing how their own dogs have become ‘shy’ in places they normally would have ventured into pre-pandemic. Psychological dysfunctions affecting social interactions with other dogs and humans resulting in a breakdown of social structures and social interactions.
Connecting the dots in animal behavior, namely within the Stanley Park ecosystem is a closed loop structure.
Had the Vancouver Park Board actively expressed concern months ago, their onerous killing program should have been predicted and addressed proactively at the time. Now we have a knee-jerk brutality of dispassionate proportion.
Bryan Adams speaks out against cull as vigil planned for the Stanley Park Coyotes
Bryan Adams took to Twitter on Sunday to say, “Culling of coyotes in Stanley Park? Consider the knock on effect by removing a species from its natural habitat. Look what happened when they wiped out the wolves in Yellowstone. They had to rewild them back to balance the ecosystem,” and included #banthecull.
The Most Simple Plan Would Have Worked To Save The Stanley Park Coyotes, Then And Now
The simplicity to address animal behavior predictively, leaves me in stunned wonderment. Asking for teams of volunteers with their own well-trained securely leashed dogs to regularly patrol these now-deserted areas would have easily and cheaply maintained territorial human possession during the pandemic.
Several animal and coyote advocacy groups have repeatedly stepped up to offer their volunteers and resources to assist the remaining 35 Stanley Park Coyotes. Yet, the political compassion is absent for the canines. The obvious being coyotes have existed in Stanley Park before human occupation.
It’s arrogantly political to claim there is “no way to rehabilitate into the wild”. The will of executives to allow (any) third party organization to successfully contradict the province’s specious claims is perhaps what is causing the politicians to dig their heels in further. Damn the Stanley Park Coyotes it seems.
It’s not like we humans were completely abandoning the park. We were going to be returning as we socially eased our return back into Stanley Park. Anticipating the returning effect of humans back onto the Stanley Park wildlife should have been done. Period.
A simple daily schedule of groups of volunteer patrols would have maintained human and dog scenting of these ‘abandoned areas’. Territorial behavior would be reinforced by human/dog patrols in daily frequency and within historical context for the coyotes would have gently pushed back and reclaimed those ‘abandoned’ areas of Stanley Park.
In other words…having volunteer groups of people walking their dogs throughout Stanley Park would gently begin reclaiming these abandoned areas.
The Stanley Park Coyotes ‘Became A Problem’ As A Fundamental Result Of The Lack Of Human Frequency Within Known Human Areas
The scarcity of food is contributory to any predator animal seeking food. Without human garbage, mice and rats became less and less as they were hunted by the park’s predators such as the Stanley Park Coyotes. Of course, any animal will become “highly food-conditioned and human-habituated” when the usual amount of human-produced food waste is no longer in ample supply (pre-pandemic). And instead, simple preventative things such as secured-from-animals litter receptacles weren’t considered. The park has been open to visitors since 1888 with current over 8 million visitors annually, pre-pandemic.
So many errors that the negligence is dripping with antipathy of administrative responsibility.
Then there’s the unpunished human behaviors of feeding the coyotes, or entering prohibited areas of Stanley Park in contravention of posted signs warning of significant monetary fines. This simply gave the public license for more and more visitors to scoff at the Vancouver Park Board unwillingness to enforce their own rules.
The frequency of coyote attacks increased quickly. The enforcement against the people violating the rules appears to never have happened.
Would Volunteer Stanley Park Patrols Have Worked?
Impossible? Ridiculous? There is no difference than what was happening pre-pandemic with visitors walking those same areas I’m suggesting be now patrolled by volunteers. The liability is no different than any visitor to the park would risk. The volunteers would likely be asked to sign waivers and receive free training regarding predator wildlife should they encounter any.
Personally, I can unequivocally state it works.
I routinely patrol the area that I live in Often after my day’s work with dysfunctional dogs, during the late night, I’ll equip myself with bright LED lights and my three Great Danes on leashes. Three different bands of coyotes live in the area. I frequently go to the local Nature Park after midnight, where, according to the MetroVancouver.org/services/parks/ there are sightings of bears, cougars and…coyotes. Not once have I nor my Great Danes experienced a single confrontation in my three years living and patrolling my area. In fact, our local rural neighborhood has seen a significantly marked decrease in coyote sightings and most importantly, reduction in coyotes attacking people and smaller animals such as dogs within my local rural neighborhood.
What Happened To The People Ignoring “DO NOT FEED WILDLIFE/COYOTES”?
Nothing.
As far as has been reported in the media. Nothing. The adult with their two children in the park after hours? Nothing. No intervention by the Ministry of Children And Families for putting their children knowingly at risk. Others in contravention resulted in no detainment for the proper authorities to attend and fine any of those parties in violation. The actions of the those ignoring the “DO NOT FEED WILDLIFE” literally contributed to the Stanley Park Coyotes becoming acclimated to humans in close proximity…which didn’t make the coyotes braver…it taught them human behavior up close. Again, any animal behaviorist could have told the Vancouver Park Board to effect strict enforcement of humans conduct.
Instead, the Stanley Park Coyotes are being killed instead.
In fact, it’s been a celebration of sorts. With many people vocally expressing pleasure, literally. On any social media platform, there are too many that are quick to not comprehend that we are the root cause of the Stanley Park Coyotes’ deaths. I can’t even describe the profound emotional dissonance that many of these discordant voices are very often themselves, owners of dogs.
Sure, coyotes, dogs and wolves are closely related and can interbreed. Their off-spring are called wolfdogs, coywolves, and coydogs.
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/wolves-coyotes-and-dogs/
Once the Stanley Park Coyotes are all killed, what about the rats and mice? There will be no more balance. This is a narrow-sighted administrative knee-jerk problem, profoundly shallow fantastical imagination that will survive past the 2022 Vancouver Mayoral election.
The rodents will infest Stanley Park within one year. Natural predators being the coyotes, killed off by administrative negligence.
And as sub-titled above, coyotes from other parts of the city will begin to migrate back into Stanley Park again.
PETITION: Canadian politicians refuse to criminalize human consumption of dog and cat meat
The Sheepdogs?
Immediately upon the announcement that the Stanley Park Coyotes will be live-trapped then killed, the award for ‘Not Reading The Room‘ goes to Canadian rock band The Sheepdogs.
In the Vancouver Park Board’s urgency to get back to ‘normalcy’ and begin refilling the City’s coffers, it appears The Sheepdogs were urging the city to trap and kill the coyotes before their appearance in Stanley Park at the Malkin Bowl. To perform live in the 2000-seat open concert venue within the park.
The Sheepdogs immediately posted this tweet upon hearing the Stanley Park Coyotes will be killed
https://twitter.com/TheSheepdogs/status/1433494899060523009
To quote Wikipedia “(The Sheepdogs’) frontman Ewan Currie, the band’s primary songwriter, has described the band’s guitar-driven blues-rock style as “pure, simple, good-time music”; he’s said that the band aims to land in the sweet spot in between Led Zeppelin and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Currie has further credited Creedence Clearwater Revival, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, and The Allman Brothers Band as influences on the band’s style.“
The irony being that many of the very artists Mr. Currie idolizes are themselves animal lovers. John Lennon, John Fogerty, Robert Plant, Gregg Allman and David Crosby.
I don’t know if The Sheepdogs are a collective of Juno-award winning band members that don’t comprehend the irony of their own namesake. Perhaps, the desire to perform and make money overwhelms the band’s members and artistic comprehension of what ‘organic’ actually means. Either way, it’s rather saddening that instead of ‘saying nothing’, they choose to mock the impending killings of the Stanley Park Coyotes to their own selfish benefit.
The Sheepdogs could certainly learn a few things from Bryan Adams…
Thank you for visiting my blog ‘The Soul Of A Dog’.
James Tsai is considered “One of North America’s top experts in canine rehabilitation.” He is known for downtraining the most extremely dangerous dogs on the continent. Giant dogs weighing upwards of 200 lbs that have attacked over one dozen people with intent to kill, in New York. James’ intuitive methods doesn’t require the use of treats, medication, prong/e-collar nor alpha. Intuitively humane and 100% effective throughout the entire dysfunction spectrum.
