Note: This article contains a photo of a wounded dog that may be disturbing to some readers.
A group of residents from the Liberty Village and Fort York areas of downtown Toronto participated in a rally at The Bentway Thursday to once again demand that the City do more to address the problems coyotes they say are hunting their pet dogs.
At the rally, the founder of the resident-led collective Coyote Safety Coalition (CSC) Ruby Kooner along with volunteer Keith Patton distributed educational flyers and shared that over the past month, they noted 28 encounters with a coyote with at least one involving a chihuahua that was carried off. While referring to other instances, they claimed a coyote tried to “grab” a two-year-old child as well as two attacks on humans with one resulting in a bite.
In its latest update on municipal actions around coyotes downtown, City of Toronto officials said they investigated claims of two attacks on humans. The claims were “not substantiated.”
Since November, the CSC reported more than 120 coyote attacks and five pet dog deaths in total. The City of Toronto has so far acknowledged the death of two pet dogs as a result of coyote attacks.
CSC has been highly vocal in asking City officials for accountability, regularly engaging with ward councillor and deputy mayor Ausma Malik as well as municipal licensing and standards staff in an attempt to resolve a problem that they feel has gone from bad to worse.
When the issue first began to escalate in the fall of last year, Kooner said they were having weekly meetings with the City to share information about the frequency and nature of coyote encounters in the area and discuss possible solutions. Those have since ceased and she said she feels the City is no longer engaging with residents or actively listening to their concerns, which is what prompted the rally.
“We’re having to do the rally now because we’re just not seeing any effective action take place,” Kooner told CityNews.
In a bid to get the problem under control, the City hired Coyote Watch Canada and a licensed hunter-trapper who goes by Critter Gitter to carry out what was called “advanced aversion techniques” based on a report and recommendations by a panel of experts. The goal is to re-instill a healthy fear into coyotes that are considered “habituated” and have lost a natural wariness of humans.
The CSC collaborated with Dr. Dennis Murray, a professor at Trent University and Canada Research Chair in Integrative Wildlife Conservation, Bioinformatics, and Ecological Modeling, to review the panel’s report and found it to be “deeply flawed.” Murray said he believes habituated coyotes cannot be reprogrammed to fear humans.
“There’s plenty of research out there that shows that animals that have extreme boldness, that have become extremely habituated to humans as seems to be the case in Liberty Village … those are irreversible behaviours,” he said.
Kooner said since the aversion experts began their activities on March 23, little has changed.
“The City thinks aversion techniques are working, they are indicating to the public that it’s working, but we’re not seeing that. We’re seeing a continuous escalation of aggressive attacks,” she said.
Shannon Tebb, a resident in the Bathurst and Wellington Street West area, said she experienced such an attack first-hand Sunday night.
“Normally we don’t take her out that late, but she really had to go. So we took her out to the laneway of my condo. She was peeing and all of a sudden there was a coyote that came out of nowhere and it literally was on her,” she said.
“The scream was so loud that like all of my building people heard … it was just the most frightening noise ever.”
Tebb said she was able to pick up her dog Roxy and escape, but the small Papillion-chihuahua mix suffered deep puncture wounds on both sides of her body.
Shannon Tebb’s dog Roxy suffered deep puncture wounds during a coyote attack on April 20, 2025. Credit: Shannon Tebb
The City has been advising residents on how to haze coyotes and in its latest report said that “coyotes encountered are responding to aversion techniques and displaying fear of humans. They are seen to be avoiding humans when body and noise-based aversion techniques are used.”
But Tebb said those techniques don’t work during an active attack and the coyote she encountered was not easy to ward off.
“I just think how many more pets have to die before something [changes]? Like next it could be a toddler that they’re going up to nip,” she said.
Another area resident, who preferred to be identified only as Andrea, said she was steps away from her building in the Jameson Avenue and King Street West area when a coyote grabbed her chihuahua Prancer and carried him off.
A City of Toronto representative told CityNews the dog was off leash — something they have been actively educating residents about avoiding and increasing enforcement on.
Kooner countered that the majority of attacks CSC has tracked have been on leashed dogs and no resident should have to worry about coyotes at their front door.
In a video Andrea shared with CityNews, she unclips Prancer from his harness and approximately five seconds later a coyote is seen running up and snatching him. His body was later found on the train tracks near Jameson and Springhurst avenues by a Via Rail driver.
Andrea said it was normal for her to let Prancer off leash when they were so close to home and has never had to think twice about it. Despite grappling with a deep amount of guilt and grief, she said she wanted to share the video to show people how quickly it can happen.
Liberty Village resident Nick Luckwell said he has had six separate encounters with coyotes since January with one being a “direct attack.”
“My dog had done her business, I had picked it up, taken a couple steps, and then my leg was taken out from behind … the coyote made contact with my leg and then got hold of her,” he said.
Luckwell reiterated that the City-recommended hazing techniques, which include yelling or loudly snapping a garbage bag in the direction of the coyotes, do not work.
“They say carry a garbage bag and all that sort of stuff, but everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face and you can’t really predict these things happening,” he said.
Luckwell, who grew up in British Columbia, said he does not understand why the City is not using lethal methods to cull the problem animals, which he noted is normal in other parts of the country.
“If this was a domestic dog, they’d be captured and euthanized. If this was a human, they would be detained and dealt with appropriately. So there is no reason why we’re giving wildlife in this instance more rights than humans and our pets. How many more attacks need to happen before lethal action is taken? How many more killings?” he asked.
“Instead of acting based on the attacks and taking the appropriate action necessary, the City of Toronto decided to take its time putting together an expert panel and studying it and delaying a response by multiple weeks while the attacks and the killings continued. I’m just disappointed by the city’s response in general.”
In a statement to CityNews, the City’s senior communications coordinator Shane Gerard said staff are actively responding to reports of coyotes in Fort York and Liberty Village and “understand that it has been a challenging time for those who live, work and play in the area.”
“Our staff, and those hired to help with aversion engagement, continue to work diligently to best address this situation and appreciate the community’s patience and assistance in helping us to move towards impactful short-term and long-term solutions.”
Malik shared update on City’s advanced aversion techniques
Following the city council meeting on Thursday, Malik attended the CSC rally and spoke to the crowd. She directly engaged with residents and made efforts to answer their questions and concerns one-on-one.
Several residents said they appreciated her presence and the empathy that she was displaying, but reiterated that it is not enough. Many expressed that they did not feel safe in the area anymore and are sick of hearing the same talking points from the City over and over.
“It feels like we are fighting the City on this and the City’s not hearing us. We are not heard. Our pain is discredited. Our suffering is discredited,” area resident Sneha Gaikwad told Malik.
Malik shared with those gathered that after a month of work in the area, Coyote Watch Canada and Critter Gitter have reported their findings, and cited the above-mentioned City update on actions around coyotes downtown.
“The City has been engaged in taking the expert advice that they have received around what the escalation protocols are [in relation to the coyotes]. There has been an effort to have targeted specialized aversion in the neighbourhood,” she said.
“What we’re seeing from that, and from what the community has shared, is that there’s actually been one coyote that has been identified as involved in the majority of the incidents. And the expert specialized support that the city has, who is a hunter-trapper, is assessing that coyote and looking to provide the City with an assessment and a recommendation around the next step from here.”
Several residents reported being attacked by more than one coyote, including Kooner herself, whose dog Amber passed away from injuries and a resultant infection following a coyote attack last year.
Malik said City staff who have been patrolling the area for months initially reported that there were potentially four coyotes in the area.
“One has been reported as moved on, another one has not been recently sighted and then there [were] two remaining, and again, from the incidents that have been reported, one was very identifiable in a majority of the incidents,” she said.
The identifiable coyote is one that appeared to have mange and area residents said it is particularly aggressive. Kooner shared that residents have been calling 3-1-1 repeatedly with sightings, asking for it to be treated or removed given that it is diseased.
Malik also confirmed the coyote affected by mange is the subject of the assessment she mentioned and next steps on how to deal with it are expected next week. She did not confirm if culling the animal is being considered.
While residents have long been opposed to lethal measures, some said at this point they just want to feel safe in their neighbourhood again.
“I have given up thinking what method the city will use. I am not going to do their job for them. I’m not going to suggest any solutions to them,” said Gaikwad.
“I don’t care what solution [they] come up with … [they] need to have a mandate for what to do next, and that should not be taking months and months of us crying and yelling and shouting in pain.”
Kooner said she remains opposed to euthanizing the animal, but understands that it might be the only option left.
“It started with the majority of the residents not wanting the coyotes to be culled and that’s kind of changing now,” she said.
“Everyone is just absolutely fed up and more people are open to culling. I will use the word ‘removal’ and let the city decide what that means.”
