RYAN WOLSTAT | QMI AGENCY
TORONTO — There’s a good chance the coyote police shot and killed in Toronto on Monday was actually a coywolf, the producer and director of a TV show about the hybrid animal says.
Part wolf and part coyote, and also known as the eastern coyote, the coywolf is increasingly being seen in the Greater Toronto Area and in urban areas across Canada.
The animal killed by police sure looked like a coywolf, said Susan Fleming, the producer and director of “Meet the Coywolf,” which will air Thursday on CBC’s The Nature of Things and on PBS later in the year.
The coywolf is far larger than a coyote, with bigger paws, larger jaws, longer legs and a tail more similar to a wolf.
A young Toronto woman, Taylor Mitchell, was attacked and killed in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in 2009 by a suspected coywolf.
The coywolf is a reasonably new species and the ones being seen in the GTA now, scientists believe, are products of the southern area of Algonquin Park, where western coyotes from the southwestern U.S. met eastern wolves and mated to create this hybrid starting around 1919.
Eastern coyotes have been in the GTA for a while now, but encounters with humans are becoming more frequent and, in some cases, causing panic.
Fleming and a number of people associated with protecting wildlife believe that the panic is unfounded and education is necessary now that these animals are here to stay.
“There needs to be a lot of education and a lot of conversation because for a lot of people it is a new phenomenon. I hope it is something the film creates — that dialogue — and brings the issue to light,” Fleming said Wednesday.
“Hopefully, it’s going to start discussions between wildlife professionals, police and the citizens. There’s a lot of misinformation out there right now. These are animals that, for the most part, are quite peaceable and go about their business. The more you know about their nature, that they’re not naturally aggressive, it helps. All education helps so you know what you’re dealing with.”
Fleming said coywolfs, like coyotes and wolves, are naturally wary of humans, but as humans encroach on their natural space and as food is left out, they are becoming more bold.
“These are animals that go about their business right below the radar,” Fleming said. “They want to go about their lives and we go about ours.”