Call off the hunt: Canadians should learn to live side by side with our furry foe the coyote.
Nova Scotia Natural Resources Minister John MacDonell's plan to offer trappers a $20-per-pelt incentive to kill coyotes is a policy born of fear rather than facts, more a publicity play than an act for public safety.
The coyote, as any child will tell you, is a wily beast, an adaptable animal that has spread to nearly every province and every kind of habitat in Canada. Research shows that their packs can shift intuitively to balance changes in population and environment, and coyotes under threat are known to produce larger litters with higher survival rates to replenish their stock.
Mr. MacDonell's claim that the $20 fee is a subsidy rather than a bounty, because its aim is to make coyotes wary of humans, rather than to cull their numbers, is undermined by his own parallel statement that the plan could spur trappers to kill as many as half of the province's 8,000 coyotes.
Furthermore, the government knows its own research has already exposed the flaws in Mr. MacDonell's plan. Sections of a government website arguing that bounties are ineffective and that one which was issued in the 1980s had "no effect" were taken down before the NDP minister unveiled his strategy. Outside the legislature, Mr. MacDonell even defended the subsidy by using advice he has taken from trappers, who are predictably pleased with the incentive.
Granted, Nova Scotia's government has been under considerable pressure from constituents who are understandably spooked by a series of recent and sometimes terrible incidents with coyotes, including a pair of mauling deaths in Cape Breton last fall. To lose a life thus is shocking and sad, but coyote attacks on humans are rare and most do not cause serious injury.
All Canadians need stern reminders not to feed coyotes, and those who fear being attacked should be helped to feel as equipped as possible to fend off the odd aggressive animal.
The province has promised more public education, but the resources given to the public palliative of trapper incentives would surely be better put to further expanding Nova Scotians' awareness about the dangers that coyotes do - and don't - pose.