Liberty Village Solution Requires Coexistence with Coyotes
Lately, when a coyote walks across my path, my happiness quickly turns to concern for their well-being. How many people will let their dogs give chase? How many will demand that the city remove them? How many will claim online that the coyote was “hunting” them? How many will insist that their very presence constitutes an unacceptable threat to children? How many will overlook countless uncontrolled dogs, only to focus all their unfounded fears on this wild canid?
There have been unfortunate incidents that have left some pet owners grieving. As a cat guardian, I know all too well the heartbreaking pain of losing a companion, and I truly sympathize with their loss. However, I cannot support allowing that grief to morph into a killing campaign—because, let’s face it, the often-used term “removal” is just a sanitized way of describing exactly that.
The media feeds from the buffet of the most sensational claims offering up panic-inducing articles with little balance. Social media is as bad as you’d expect, with fear mongering disguised as cautionary reports. This blizzard of half-truths has led some residents to claim they are living in “terror” and being “hunted.” A frequently quoted so-called “expert” claims that euthanasia—a term that should be used to describe the alleviation of suffering—is the only solution, repeatedly offering the same recommendation like a bad algorithm. Meanwhile, experts who work regularly with coyotes are drowned out, dismissed as incompetent by those who simply want them gone. People who have never even attempted aversion conditioning declare it ineffective and foolish.
This kind of heated polarization infects many challenging topics today, yet it rarely leads to effective solutions. Without changing human behavior, this issue will arise again—here or elsewhere in the city. Coexistence requires a different conversation. It’s a mindset—one that means adapting our own actions to acknowledge that we are not the only species living here. It requires intentionality and empathy toward those who do not speak our language or follow our laws. It demands that we learn about and respect the species around us in our more-than-human city.