Montreal will deploy a 'hazing' team to scare away coyotes

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The Ville de Montreal has updated its plans to deal with coyotes in urban areas of the city.

A team of specialists will be hired to roam the streets and scare away the wild animals in the hopes they’ll stop interacting with humans, and vice versa.

Dubbed a ‘hazing campaign,’ the city says there’s no other way to deal with urban coyotes other than coexisting with the animals. According to a statement from Ahuntsic-Cartierville mayor, Émilie Thuillier, coyotes have been living in Montreal since the early 70s and are too territorial to drive out of the city, they’ll simply return in bigger packs.

In areas where coyotes appear to have lost their fear for humans, the ‘coyote specialist’ team will spend several hours a day making noises and scaring the animals to make them relearn their natural fear of people.

The team plans to capture coyotes and attach GPS trackers to them to study their movements and locations.

The updated plan does, however, include killing the animals if they become overly aggressive.

The mayor says the ultimate goal is to ensure the population in Montreal is safe. According to Thuillier, when coyotes bite, it’s a sign they don’t fear humans and associate us with food.

To date, 19 people have been bitten by coyotes since June 2017, all of whom sustained substantial wounds.

In efforts to track the animal, the city is calling on the public to report all coyote sightings within Montreal to the city’s “coyote hotline.”

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