This program is now finished. Thank you to all the volunteers who participated over the years!

The Urban Coyote Intervention Program helps volunteers from targetted Edmonton neighbourhoods in making their communities safer for coyotes and people. 

An invitation

The Edmonton Urban Coyote Project at the University of Alberta invites volunteers from neighbourhoods in Edmonton to participate in community-based aversive conditioning of urban coyotes. The goal of this program is to increase wariness in coyotes that occupy residential neighbourhoods. We seek over 20 participating communities with high past rates of coyote reports. 

To be eligible for the program, each community will need to  identify volunteers who will (i) sign a U of A volunteer liability release, (ii) obey the COVID precautions required by the University of Alberta, City of Edmonton, and Province of Alberta, and (iii) follow the procedures for observing and treating coyotes, recording data, and maintaining safety. ​​
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Photo by John McLay

Program update

Over the two field seasons of our program, we recruited, trained and engaged 120 volunteers from 71 neighbourhoods who conducted 1598 patrols, observed coyotes in 175 instances, and conducted hazing 23 times. Coyotes retreated before volunteers were within 40 m during 70.6% of the observations and 22/23 (95.7%) of coyotes retreated from aversive conditioning. Perhaps owing to limitations of sample size, we found little evidence that hazing changed subsequent measures of overt reaction or flight response distances by coyotes and its effects on the number or timing of subsequent coyote reports by members of the public were inconsistent. Our study emphasizes the rarity of close encounters with coyotes and the high frequency with which they retreat from human advances and even directed attention.

This work is currently being prepared for publication. 

Edmonton Urban coyote project
training website for Community-based Aversive Conditioning

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