Hey, Ottawa: Stop feeding the coyotes!

The expression is very appropriate in this case. For the past three years, the crisis has raged in Greely and surrounding area, with coyotes being accused of – among other things – snatching house cats and various family pets right out of their owners’ yards.

While the good burghers of rural south Ottawa have warned that a small child could be next, so far, that hasn’t come to pass.

Farmers are also complaining, that coyotes are wreaking havoc among their sheep herds. Coyotes always have, in rural Ottawa and everywhere else, and they always will. Meanwhile, $200 in provincial compensation is paid out for most farm animals killed by predators.

The influx of coyotes into Ottawa’s suburban areas has been blamed on many circumstances, including milder winters, lack of traditional food for the predators, and a gradual decline in their natural fear of humans.

Two years ago, trappers hired by Osgoode Ward Councillor Doug Thompson set out to eradicate the problem but weren’t unsuccessful. Sympathetic experts in the field say coyotes in rural Ottawa are here to stay and people have to get used to co-existing with them.

But guess what? There’s a whole other previously undisclosed element to the crisis which just became public this week when a city roads crew worker anonymously tipped off a daily newspaper to a very surprising situation.

It seems that, for just about as long as the coyotes have been a hot issue in Greely, the roads crew has been offering them a tempting banquet of roadkill carcasses dumped at a pit in the general area they’ve been “terrorizing”.

So, it seems, they haven’t appeared in residential backyards for no specific reason other than to nab cats. Through the coyote grapevine, they’ve heard about the easy pickings provided by the city, have come in from the woods to partake, and have decided to check out the neighbourhood for more treats.

Until about three years ago, roadkill victims were dropped off at a more rural location. For convenience sake, the tipster said, it was decided to change dumpsites to a handier one which happens to be close to suburbia.

Also quoted were a couple of nearby residents who bring along a baseball bat when they walk in the area of the dumpsite to protect themselves from possible coyote attack. It’s something they didn’t do a few years ago and have always suspected the spike in the coyote population was directly related to the carcass dump.

Donna Dubreuil, president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre, called the situation hypocritical, in that the city is at least partly responsible for the coyote crisis.

And Dubreuil joined other critics in blasting the planned “Great Coyote Cull Contest” promoted by the Osgoode Township Fish, Game and Conservation Club. For a $2 entry fee, participants who bring in proof of a dead coyote win a ballot in a shotgun raffle. Dubreuil has called the approach an embarrassing “18th century response.”

All the craziness reminds me of the situation along the St. Lawrence Seaway where the resident Canada Geese population has become a terrific nuisance by damaging crops, soiling beaches and polluting watercourses. Everybody along the shoreline wants the geese gone.

So, what do you think one of the main draws is keeping them in the area all year long? They’re being fed by the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, a provincial government agency, as a tourist attraction.

Would you fly north or south and leave behind that banquet of free food? Would you get out of Greely and abandon that endless supply of juicy, delivered-to-the-door roadkill carcasses?

Of course not! What self-respecting goose or coyote would?

Step number one in diminishing the crisis: Stop feeding the coyotes, Ottawa! Step number two: Wait and see what happens.