Students and staff at an elementary school in Cape Breton are looking over their shoulders after a group of students were followed home by two coyotes.
There is concern the animals are growing more brazen; the students say the animals failed to back off when they started to throw rocks to scare them away, and they only stopped following the group once they fled into a yard.
The Natural Resources Department has sent a trapper to catch the problem animals, but the principal at Mountainview Elementary in Howie Centre, N.S. isn't convinced their method of trapping will actually work.
The coyotes will be caught using a soft trapping method, which captures the animal but doesn't kill it immediately. The animal is destroyed later, but school Principal Jeannie Stone believes killing them right away would be a safer bet.
"I have to totally honest, I just want them gone," she says. "I'm thinking of my primaries, and my other children, and because this is the second threat, we really would just like them gone from near the school."
A staff member spotted a coyote on school grounds in December, before children arrived for the day. The soft trapping method was used at the time, but it failed to catch all the animals near the school.
"The soft traps were put out and they kept checking," says Stone. "But nothing happened. So today, we understand they're going to be a little bit more vigilant."
Natural Resources say the soft trapping method is still the best solution when coyotes become too comfortable around humans.
The school is also cutting thick shrubbery around the building, giving the coyotes fewer places to go unnoticed.
The trapper has until May 25 to catch the animals, but students and staff are hoping the issue will be resolved before then.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ryan MacDonald
