Feeding, increasing habituation and an uptick in park visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic were just a few reasons Vancouver saw a large uptick in coyote attacks on humans several years ago. From December 2020 to August 2021, authorities registered 45 reports of coyotes (Canis latrans) attacking humans in Stanley Park, a large urban park in Vancouver, Canada, and many more instances of coyotes lunging or threatening people. This number compared to only one aggressive encounter in the previous decade. Wildlife managers culled 11 coyotes in response to these attacks, but that doesn’t mean that coyotes were totally removed from Stanley Park. Researchers recently published a paper tracking the lessons learned from these episodes in Animal Behavior. They found that during the pandemic, Stanley Park saw a huge increase in visitors to the area, which may have quickly gotten the coyotes used to humans. Some people also fed coyotes, which helped reduce the animals’ fear of humans. All of these factors may have increased coyotes’ bold behavior in these months. The researchers recommended improving garbage disposal and increasing efforts to educate the public about feeding wild animals to prevent future incidents.
