Dogs attacked by coyote pack in Etobicoke park

Published Sep 04, 2024  •  2 minute read

Kahlua the dog is pictured after surgery. The dog was attacked by coyotes in an Etobicoke park on July 1 while being walked by owners Mary and Doug Youngson. (Mary Youngson photo)

Etobicoke retirees Mary and Doug Youngson were out walking their dogs when pack of about eight coyotes set upon them in a wooded area of Princess Margaret Park.

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“We were screaming and yelling,” said Mary, 63, of the scary July 1 encounter at the park, located on Kipling Ave., about 1.5 kilometres south of Eglinton Ave.

Their dogs, she recalled, pulled out of their collars and a coyote picked up and savagely injured one of her canines — Kahlua, who weighs about 30 pounds.

Her husband, Doug, 72, suffered “broken blood vessels in his eyes, cuts and bruises all over himself as he’s running through the trees and then when he finally moves into get our dog, our dog — (now) in attack mode — bit him,” said Youngson. “So I take both dogs and my husband fights the coyotes off, and then we get out.”

Suffering from many bites and puncture wounds on his chest and abdomen, Kahlua required emergency surgery at a Mississauga veterinarian clinic, and ended up with “hundreds of stitches and staples.” The dog spent a week recovering in a medical clinic.

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Her other dog, Mai Tai, which is about 40 pounds, suffered scratches and bruises.

The couple has been living in the area for almost 30 years but say coyote sightings have been more frequent in the last decade.

Doug Youngson, 72, after he, his wife Mary, 63, and their two dogs were attacked by a pack of coyotes on July 1 in Etobicoke’s Princess Margaret Park. (Mary Youngson photo)

Mary, who has collected more than 650 signatures on a change.org petition calling on the city to remove the dangerous pack of coyotes, said she reported seeing coyotes to City Hall before the attack on her pets, but nothing was done.

“We’re saying an animal that’s a predator like that and that emboldened shouldn’t be in an urban area,” she insisted.

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Doug, meanwhile, went to a walk-in clinic to be treated for his hand plus scraps and bruises.

It was “so highly traumatic,” said Mary, adding she and Doug later got tetanus shots at Humber River Hospital.

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“So the 5 p.m. walk — we got home at 9 a.m the next morning.”

She attended an Aug. 1 community meeting about coyotes — organized by local Councillor Stephen Holyday — where it was “clear that there were quite a few people who had incidents of varying degrees.”

“They didn’t understand that this wasn’t just one coyote that you yell at and it goes away. These were packs. They had hurt quite a few people.”

A City of Toronto spokesperson told The Toronto Sun that “removing coyotes from this location will result in a rebound effect with increased reproduction and new coyotes entering the vacant habitat.”

As soon as the city was notified about the attack, animal control officers were deployed to the area and from July 2-23, they monitored the situation and educated residents, handing out brochures.

The spokesperson added, “on more than three occasions, staff encountered coyotes in groups of two to three” which left the area when confronted by animal control officers who stood tall, were assertive and used loud voices.

The coyote family, which includes pups born in April, “had been harassed by dogs off leash and could explain their defensive response to dogs,” insisted the spokesperson.

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