What you can do
People and wild animals live side by side in Ontario. Preventing a problem is a far better solution that dealing with wildlife after a conflict.
As a property owner, you have a role in making sure you are not attracting wildlife to your property that you don't want there.
Preventing encounters
Limit attractants:
- Keep pet food indoors
- Use secure garbage containers with locking lids and store in an enclosed structure.
- Put garbage out the morning of a scheduled pickup.
- Use enclosed composting bins rather than exposed piles.
- Pick ripe fruit and seed from trees and remove fallen fruit from the ground.
- Protect vegetable gardens with heavy-duty garden fences or place vegetable plants in a greenhouse.
Discourage coyotes from entering your property:
- Clear away bushes and dense weeds near your home where coyotes may find cover and small animals.
- Use motion sensor lights.
- Close off spaces under porches, decks and sheds. Coyotes use these areas for denning and raising young.
- If you fence your property, install a two-metre-high fence that extends at least 20 centimetres underground as coyotes may dig under a barrier.
- Electric fencing can also help deter coyotes.
To prevent predation if you own livestock:
- Where possible, bring your livestock into barns or sheds at night.
- Guard animals, such as donkeys, llamas and dogs can be cost-effective ways to protect livestock from coyotes. Guard animals develop bonds with livestock and will aggressively ward off predators.
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