CALGARY — A coyote mother and her three pups have decided that their home sweet home is under a backyard shed in the middle of the city.
Two weeks ago, Cheryl Ehret thought someone’s puppy had mistakenly wandered into her northeast Calgary yard, but after a closer look she realized the animal was actually a coyote.
Ehret believes the pups are between six and eight weeks old and may have been born in her yard.
“I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never seen a coyote so close before,” said Ehret, a mother of three children. “The pups play like they own the place, but the mom is really skittish and cautious.”
So far, the coyotes haven’t bothered Ehret or her family, but she said she is worried that the pups will become more aggressive as they get older.
The mother already goes off at night to hunt and Ehret suspects the pups are eating solid food.
“I don’t want them here when my kids get out of school at the end of June,” said Ehret, who also runs a before-and-after-school day home for five other children.
She has contacted Alberta Fish and Wildlife, as well as an animal rescue society, but neither has been able to remove the animals.
She has followed through with suggestions to use mothballs to repel the wild canines and disturb the area around their den to make it look like a predator is nearby, but nothing has worked.
Wildlife officials have told Ehret once the pups are old enough to hunt on their own, the family will likely abandon the den.
But she’s concerned about how they’ll make it to safety on their own with no green spaces nearby.
“If they still won’t leave, I don’t know what we’ll do.”