Spring brings more reports of foxes and coyotes in the Quinte region

This coyote was spotted in the east end of Belleville at the end of April. Photo courtesy of Jesse McFaul.

By Shira Rubinoff

BELLEVILLE – Spring has sprung, meaning all types of animals are out and about at this time of year, but foxes and coyotes are two of the animals that are getting noticed and reported more than others.

Over the past two and a half weeks, a community Facebook group called Belleville Neighbours has had four posts about fox and coyote sightings in the Quinte region. One of these posts was made on April 23 at around 10 a.m. and contained a video of a coyote, with audio of a man saying, “What are you doing in Belleville’s, and my, backyard?”

Jesse McFaul, a 41-year-old construction worker from Belleville, said he was outside in the yard of his east-end home collecting the tools he needed for work that day when he heard a commotion from his neighbours. He ignored it at first, but then realized that his neighbour was yelling at him, telling him there was a wolf behind him.

“I turned around and it was like, crouched down, slowly walking towards me, and it was maybe 10 feet away,” McFaul told QNet News Thursday. He said that his neighbour had called animal control and Belleville police, but both of them said nothing could be done. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

According to McFaul, he then called animal control and asked them to come and bring a pole snare and a live cage. The animal-control officer did come, and “he dragged the pole on the ground and scared (the coyote) under the fence to my neighbour’s house and it took off instantly,” he said.

Shortly after the coyote ran off, a comment was made on a different Facebook post in the same group, saying that it had been hit and killed “by (the) old cop shop” on Dundas Street East.

So what was this coyote doing in McFaul’s backyard? One of the answers to that question may be that spring is baby season for these animals. Foxes and coyotes may be seen more often during the day when they are going out to hunt for food for their newborn pups, according to Dee Newbery of Foster Forest Wildlife Orphanage in Trenton.

“Neither (animal) is disturbed by urbanization,” Newbery said in an interview with QNet News. “(They’ve) been living there all year, you just didn’t see them.”

Newbery explained that urban areas mean there is garbage, having garbage brings mice, and foxes know that they can find reliable food sources near urban areas in all seasons.

The change in routine for people who used to work in an office and are now working from home may be another reason that foxes and coyotes are being reported more often this year, according to Korena Pierce, secretary at Pierce Animal Control Services in Belleville. 

Pierce also said that during the spring, people start to notice foxes more in daylight hours. She said in one day, she may receive six different calls about the same fox.

Pierce also said there have been less calls about coyotes this spring and more calls about foxes. Since coyotes and foxes share the same food source, “when one is up (in numbers), the other is down,” she said. “There is a normal cycle.”

Newbery added, “These animals don’t hunt children, dogs or cats, but they will fight for what they think is theirs.”