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MONDAY AUGUST 23 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM Clarke Nolan Jennifer Nolan CELEBRATING 30 YEARS IN BUSINESS HOPEDALE MALL HOPEDALE MALL MY COMMUNITY, MY MALL FUNCAMP CAMP HOPEDALE Thursday, August 19 - 11:00am to 2:00pm CRAFT DAY Centre Court Thursday, August 26 ABRACADABRA Ala Kazaam Day Its Magic.... with Ryan Brown Make a fun Friendship Bracelet for yourself or your best friend Enjoy a magic show and then learn some great magic tricks to delight and dazzle your friends and family! 11:00am Centre Court w w w . o a kv ill eb ea ve r.c o m O A KV IL LE B EA V ER W e dn es da y, A ug us t 1 8, 2 01 0 4 If so, it was not alone something Glas would soon discover. I started to walk up the valley a little bit and thats when I saw a coyote on my left side. It was a lot smaller than the big one (husky/coyote). I saw up at the top and it wasnt white, it was sort of brownish, like a wild rabbit, she said. Then I saw another one on my right side. Glas fear grew as another coyote appeared, then another, then another. In total, she said, there were six coyotes opposite her, two of which began running in her direction. I panicked and then I thought, Okay, Im not going to sit here and fight them, Im just going to run like hell. Grabbing a big stick for pro- tection and making as much noise as she could to frighten them off, Glas ran out of the val- ley and along the trail for about 30 minutes until she reached a residential area. At some point, she said, she no longer heard the coyotes barking behind her, but said they were moving fast enough to have caught her if they wanted to. I think they just wanted me out of their territory. I dont know if they had a den there or something, but it just seemed like they wanted me out of there. Biologist Nathalie Karvonen, executive director of the Resident has no plan to revisit coyotes she met Toronto Wildlife Centre, said it is hard to guess what happened but it is doubtful the coyotes actually wanted to hurt Glas. In our experience, the calls weve gotten where that behav- iour has been described has not been whats really happened. First of all, usually the per- son is terrified of coyotes to start with and sometimes the coyotes just happened to be going the same direction as the person and sometimes coyotes will actually exhibit play behav- iour, like dogs do, where if someone starts running they will start running (after them). Karvonen said a coyote sim- ply charging a stationary per- son would be completely bizarre behaviour. She also said this time of year, depending on how plenti- ful food is, coyotes will be found in family groups consisting of two adults and four to eight pups, who by now would be about as large as their parents. The pups will stay with their parents for their first winter before leaving to find their own territories. Karvonen said fear of coy- otes makes little sense as attacks on people are very rare with fatal coyote attacks being even more unusual. While growing up in the urban area may have lessened the coyotes fear of humans, Karvonen said this does not make them more dangerous. If I see a raccoon at my cot- tage, which is in a remote area, the raccoon is going to run in the opposite direction. On the other hand, if you see a raccoon in the city, it is going to hardly bat an eye, it just keeps saunter- ing by. You could probably get within 20 feet of it and it wont care because it is used to seeing people, said Karvonen. It does- nt make them more dangerous towards people, it just means youre going to see them more. Karvonen said anyone who encounters six coyotes in the future can probably just con- tinue with their business with- out being bothered by them. However, if you do want to scare them away, Karvonen recommends making yourself look a big as possible and mak- ing a lot of noise. The Oakville and Milton District Humane Society has recommended rapidly opening and closing an umbrella to scare coyotes away as they have yet to become accustomed to it. The one thing that does make coyotes potentially more dangerous is if people feed them, said Karvonen. That causes really prob- lematic behaviour in many ani- mals and there have been a number of situations where coyotes have nipped at people because it was a coyote that was being fed by someone. As a result, they were coming very close and becoming very bold because when they are fed by one person, they dont distin- guish that they cant do that with another person. Karvonen went on to say people may be encouraging coyotes by leaving pet food out- side or by leaving small dogs and cats outside unsupervised. A coyote does see a small dog or cat as a food source. While she said she never real- ly feared for her life during her coyote encounter, Glas said she has no plans to revisit that por- tion of Fourteen Mile Creek Trail. Continued from page 1