Neighbourhood fears grow after boy mauled by coyote

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This article was published 25/06/2023 (852 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A nine-year-old boy is recovering at home after being bitten by a coyote in the North Kildonan area Saturday night.

Police and conservation officers are still on the lookout for the wild animal.

The boy was walking home with his 15-year-old sister near Popko Crescent and Knowles Avenue around 6:45 p.m. Saturday when they saw the coyote and tried to run away. The animal chased them and mauled the young boy.

Neighbour Logan Funk heard the boy’s screams for help and came running.

“I looked out the window, and what I thought I saw was a dog attack. I realized five seconds later, it’s a coyote,” the 18-year-old said. Funk said the boy was bleeding from the back of his head.

“He is continuously screaming,” Funk recounted, saying he also shouted “at the top of my lungs” in his deep voice, and brought the boy over to Funk’s family’s driveway. But at first, the coyote wasn’t deterred and looked as if it were circling back to attack again. Funk grabbed a shovel out of the garage and chased the coyote away.

“There’s still kids out on the street who don’t know about this yet, so I went off and scared the coyote off with a shovel,” he said. By then, more neighbours had rushed over to help.

The coyote was about the size of a golden retriever, he said, but much more dangerous.

“It seemed aggressive. It seemed like it could’ve wanted more… because it stayed there. It wasn’t scared of all of us.”

Funk’s mother Suzy Gerbrandt praised the little boy and his older sister for being so brave. His sister was trying to flag down help, she said.

“She was doing all the right things, too.”

Gerbrandt said residents have been reporting coyote sightings in recent weeks, and the neighbourhood, filled with young families and pet owners, is “definitely overrun” with the wild animals.

“We can’t go out at night, we don’t like to go at dusk. You know, if you feel like you have to be armed with a golf club to feel safe in your neighbourhood, I think something does need to be done now. I don’t think we can take comfort that they don’t usually attack people, because this has now proven that they do,” Gerbrandt said.

“Now that we’ve seen this happen and how vicious it was, you now can’t just live amongst them, I don’t think.”

The boy’s parents have been keeping their neighbours updated via Facebook posts, urging caution in the area.

The boy’s mother posted her son was resting at home after receiving quite a few stitches and staples to the back of his head. They declined an interview request Sunday, but his mother provided a statement to the Free Press.

“We are grateful to our community/neighbours who responded so quickly to this horrific incident and offered help,” said the boy’s mom.

She said their experience at Children’s Hospital late Saturday night and into Sunday morning was distressing.

“The paramedics, police and doctors and nurses at HSC were very compassionate and helpful. They did a great job. That being said, our health-care system is broken and isn’t robust enough to handle (one) serious injury in a timely manner. For anyone who has spent time in Children’s emergency you will know it is dirty, in a state of disrepair and understaffed.

“Our poor boy sat with an open scalp for hours. Which lengthened the trauma he had already endured and made treating the gaping wound on his head that much more difficult. Once again, we have nothing but great things to say about the people who work there. We understand that this is no fault of the staff, but a direct reflection of the limited resources available to them,” she added.

“If anything can come out of this tragic situation, we would like more awareness brought to the ongoing coyote problem in the neighbourhood, and something to be done about the health-care crisis.”

After the attack, the coyote was seen running off into the bushes behind residential properties along the street. The neighbourhood, Algonquin Estates, is located near city limits by North Kildonan and East St. Paul. Residents’ back yards are situated along green space and the perimeter of the city is just beyond the bush, where residents have reported seeing dens and several coyotes wandering.

City Coun. Jeff Browaty represents the North Kildonan ward and he grew up not far from where the coyote attacked. He expressed concern for the child’s well-being and said he’s heard of more coyote sightings in the vicinity, describing it as a relatively recent phenomenon. It’s up to provincial conservation officials to manage coyotes, Browaty said, saying the municipal government is “exceptionally limited” in what it can do to deal with wild animals that are native to Manitoba.

He called on conservation officers to take action.

“Whether that’s relocating them or removing them some other way, I’d certainly like to hear about it,” Browaty said. He said he would seek more information as to whether there’s anything residents can do to prevent more coyotes from approaching their properties.

“We live in a beautiful part of the city with a lot of green spaces and naturalized areas, but when these interactions become dangerous to the population, we have to stop and make sure we’re on the right track, or if there’s more we should be doing.”

It’s not the first time a coyote has gone after a child in the area.

Neighbourhood resident Martin Deck said a coyote chased his now-11-year-old son around this time last summer. Their property backs onto Chornick Park, and Deck said his son was playing in the park when the coyote approached. The boy ran to a play structure and climbed on top of the monkey bars, Deck said.

“He was crying for help, because he was out there by himself. We didn’t even know at the time. And basically, a man with a dog came by and scared the coyote away,” Deck said.

“He was very shaken up by it.”

A few months later, Deck spotted a pack of coyotes in the neighbourhood while he was out for a run alone at dusk. He said he wishes the nine-year-old boy a speedy recovery and hopes the community will have a discussion about coyote population control measures.

“Nobody wants to start wiping out populations of animals, but when it’s attacking children….We’ve got to do something.”

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Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen stated as of Sunday afternoon, authorities hadn’t yet tracked down the coyote.

“We are continuing to work with Conservation to locate and manage this coyote. Efforts are ongoing.”

Be “large and loud” if a coyote approaches, police advise: “a practice known as hazing. Examples of hazing include raising a jacket or another piece of clothing above your head to appear larger and shouting. A safety whistle is another option for creating noise,” the police service stated in a news release Sunday.

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com

— with files from Free Press staff

Katie May
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Katie May is a multimedia producer for the Free Press.

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