Understanding our fear and learning to live with predators in our community
InsideHalton.com
Michael Howie
May 11, 2011 – 10:05 PM
NORTH OAKVILLE TODAY – “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so we may fear less.” – Marie Curie
A North Oakville woman walking the paths of 14 Mile Creek is suddenly face to face with a coyote, its head slightly bowed, in all appearances waiting for an opportunity to attack. In the blink of an eye, the predator is gone.
From the window of a Glen Abbey home, a resident sees a flash of movement in the backyard. But the movement is much too large and swift to belong the family’s pet Chihuahua. The resident opens the back door to investigate and sees the tiny family pet in the grasp of a coyote. The sound of the door opening frightens the coyote who drops the dog and escapes over the fence and into the ravine.
The terrifying stories of coyotes in North Oakville are plentiful. These carnivores appear as suddenly as they disappear. They hunt in backyards, stalk the pathways and leave residents with an ominous feeling.
We are afraid. But should we be?
Fear of coyotes
“When there’s something with the potential to hurt us, we’re afraid,” offered Michael Runtz, a professor at Carleton University and renowned Ontario wildlife expert. “It’s part of our psyche. Consider the safety of driving on the QEW; it is far more dangerous, yet we shrug that off because we accept that we’re safe in a car. But if you mention there’s a pack of coyotes around the corner, we’re reminded of that fear.”
Runtz explained that while cars weren’t part of our history thousands of years ago, large carnivores, like coyotes, certainly were.
Evolutionary psychology, the explanation of psychological traits which are functional products of natural selection, verifies Runtz’s belief.
“A child that requires attack or injury to learn that an animal is dangerous is unlikely to survive for long,” wrote David M. Buss in Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. “For this reason, we might expect natural selection to have created a specialized learning system.”
In his book, Buss points to studies indicating that nonhuman primates (apes, gorillas, etc.) are able to “culturally transmit” learned knowledge such as fear of predators and “pre-specified cues to dangerousness” (sharp teeth, large size, etc.). He theorizes that this is likely common in human evolution as well.
Human fear is a driving force behind the request for management of coyotes, noted top urban carnivore scientist Stanley Gehrt in Oxford Press’ Urban Carnivores: Ecology, Conflict and Conservation.
“Fear often dictates the public’s response to the presence of carnivores in developed areas,” he wrote.
North Oakville is home to many natural predators – red-tailed hawks, red foxes and domestic cats – all who compete with coyotes for many of the same food groups. Though according to Gehrt, “coyotes differ from most other urban wildlife in that they can be deemed worthy of removal simply by being seen, rather than after they have caused some damage or inconvenience for human residents.”
History of coyotes
Coyotes began appearing in Ontario over 100 years ago, mostly because citizens created the coyotes’ ideal environment.
“The habitat changed,” said Runtz. “From the 1600s to the 1800s, there was a major change in landscape. Coyotes are open country animals, not forest animals. When continuous forest was cleared for large scale agriculture, the habitat favoured coyotes.”
Eastern Coyotes as they are now known are actually a genetic mix of Western Coyotes and Eastern Wolves, which were the original apex predator in this area.
“As the coyotes came in around 1900, the females dispersed in greater distances than males did,” Runtz explained. “They began looking for a mate, and there were a few isolated wolves left.”
Studies in the northeastern United States have shown that the increases of wolf DNA in coyotes does not directly affect their behaviour.
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