Cull not the solution to stop coyote attacks in Stanley Park, expert says

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — There are growing questions about what to do with Stanley Park following more aggressive coyote attacks this week.

The latest one happened early Monday morning when two people were said to be having a picnic during a time when the park was closed.

This is the latest in dozens of attacks that have been taking place over the past few months.

Kristen Walker is an assistant professor at UBC in the Applied Biology Program. She’s been doing active research in the park for months, studying coyote behaviour, which she admits is abnormal.

They’ve put up cameras around the park but reveals some of their work has been derailed because some of the cameras have been stolen or vandalized.

She’s calling for parts of the park to be completely closed.

“I do think that’s something that needs to be seriously looked at but to close that also requires some enforcement of that closure,” she said. That enforcement, she feels to this point, has been lacking which is only leading to more attacks.

“The reality of closing a whole park, I think part of that needs to be left up to some of the officials that manage that park, because the park area is so complex. We have the Vancouver Aquarium in there, so we need to make sure we’re meeting in with the hours of the aquarium. There are parts of the park right now that are the trails that are closed off but even closing off possibly some of the vehicle access as well,” Walker said.

Walker thinks closing off parts of it right now isn’t working because there’s not enough enforcement.

“When we’ve been there doing work we see people actively going beyond the barriers that are set up and I can’t tell you how many times we’ve walked up to people to say, ‘This area is closed. You’re not supposed to go back there.’ And either people shrug it off and they say, ‘We’re going to take the risk,’ or they ask a little of questions about why it’s closed off.”

There was another coyote attack in Stanley Park this week. The latest in dozens that have happened over the past several months. Spoke w/@UBC‘s @wild_welfare who says large parts of the park should be closed, a cull is not an option and people need to stop feeding the wildlife.

— Sonia Aslam (@SoniaSAslam) August 18, 2021

She says controlling the issue isn’t as easy as it may seem to the general public.

“There’s a multitude of things that are at play here at the park and I think the enforcement with some of that needs to be stepped up, even talking about wildlife feeding. So, people have been seen, even in the past few weeks, hand-feeding raccoons. And there have been some incidents with raccoons attacking people, so this is a widespread problem we have.”

Another option that’s been thrown out there is a cull but Walker is against that.

She’s calling for stricter enforcement and is begging the general public to stop feeding animals in the park, including raccoons. Walker adds there have been some raccoon attacks in addition to the ongoing coyote attacks. Do you think the park should be closed?

— Sonia Aslam (@SoniaSAslam) August 18, 2021

“Do we really want to be dealing with this again in a year? The problem is a human-layered problem that we have underneath here with the way we’re using that forest. It is an urban forest. We have wildlife that are living there and we need to be able to co-exist with this wildlife. This is very different than when we’re talking about just a small urban park. The way we use Stanley Park and the forest there needs to change. It’s the same as if we’re looking at Pacific Spirit Park — that’s a forest,” she said.

“One of the things we know, and the science fully backs this, is a cull will not work in the long-term. And so, sure we can go in there and we can remove all of those animals but more will move in. So, it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem,” Walker explained.

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Walker says we’ve been co-living with coyotes for 40-plus years but now time is of the essence.

“If you look at Stanley Park, they can exit the park so what I mean there’s movement between there, it’s not as though they’re on a small island and they’re isolated. We like to think Stanley Park is an island but it’s not an island. There had been, even recently, a coyote that was witnessed out in the water, in the Burrard Inlet, so we know there’s movement. It’s not as simple as going in there and doing a full-scale cull.”

So far, four coyotes have been euthanized due to aggressive attacks.

“We can’t say it’s definitely due to just wildlife feeding or it’s definitely due to COVID-19, where people are now utilizing the park more or that people are using it after-hours — all of that has been happening before. This is probably a compounded issue with all of this that has accumulated and then one coyote has learned, whether that be because of food conditioning that somebody has been hand-feeding it, or whether that be with some of the people living in the park and there have been interactions with people living in the park,” she said.

She adds, “the thing is we don’t know the exact cause of this at this point. So, all of that is being investigated. It could be that one of these coyotes have learned about this aggressive behaviour and it has not been located.”

The province responds: 

In a statement to NEWS 1130, the B.C. Ministry of Forests says “the South Coast Region Resource Management is collaboratively working with a task force team to deliver a multi-pronged management response.”

Adding, “intensity of management responses will escalate with escalating human-coyote conflict in a reactive manner until underlying influencing factors are better understood and can be addressed.”

The task force includes members from the COS, City of Vancouver, Vancouver Park Board, Stanley Park Ecological Society (SPES) and academic experts.

The park is closed daily from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. due to a wildfire risk.