Second coyote put down after attacks on people in northwest Calgary

An aggressivecoyote linked to a spate of attacks on people in northwestCalgary has been euthanized, the city confirmed.It is the second coyote to be killedin the past two weeks after several Calgarians were attacked.

On June 22, anunusually aggressive animal believed to be responsible for three attacks in Nolan Hill was captured and killed by a city contractor.

On Tuesday, the city saidasecond coyoteinvolved in the recent incidents in Tuscanyhadbeen killed, in an emailed statement. The two neighbourhoods where the attacks took place are about10 kilometres apart.

The secondcoyote is suspected in attacks on four people in the past several days,said city spokesperson Lincoln Julie in a press conference Monday.

The victims includeda woman sitting on her deckand a high school graduate sitting on the grass in a city park.

Fish and Wildlife havebeen monitoring several coyotes in the area over the past week, said Ward 1 Coun.Ward Sutherland in an interview Tuesday.

That's how they were able to identifythe aggressive coyote last night, he said.

Sutherland says an autopsy will be done on the animal in order todetermine if it had rabies,as rabies can be contagious.

He says it is not known if it was the same coyote involved in every attack in Tuscany and that monitoring will continue in the area for the near future.

The councillor says part of the problem is that people have been feeding wild animals, which results in the animals becoming comfortable enough to leave wooded areas.

"The fact that the coyotes are cominginto people's yards that's your indication they're getting fed or their garbageisn'tcovered up that type of thing," he said.

'This is really atypical'

Over the past two weeks, six Calgarians have been bitten by coyotes in the city's northwest, three in Nolan Hill and three in Tuscany.

"This is really atypical,"said Shelley Alexander,a coyote researcher at the University of Calgary.

This aggressive behaviour toward humans is usually caused by deliberate feeding of coyotes, she says.

Alexander says "prevention is key" and that removing food sources offered by humans is a way to avoid this type of behaviour.

She says it's odd that there is more than one coyote acting this way, and that onaverage, there are fewer than three coyote attacks on humans across Canada per year.

In a Facebook post Tuesdaymorning, SutherlandurgedCalgarians to call 311 to report sightings and locations of animals like bobcats and coyotes.