A litter of coyote pups was accidently trapped on Tuesday after the school district boarded up a den the mother had made beneath a portable at Marlborough Elementary.
Burnaby resident Bruce Causier caught the whole thing on film.
"The school workers had sealed the coyote puppies underneath the portable. The mother was all stressed out circling around the portable," Causier said, adding people had gathered to watch, including kids. "There were actually kids going up and kicking the boards. I had to approach the parents there and tell them they were putting their kids in a dangerous situation."
The recently discovered den was boarded up as a safety measure, but the pups were still inside, separated from their mother.
A concerned resident removed one of the boards after hearing cries from the trapped pups. The mother returned to the school grounds and paced relentlessly around the den, circling the portable. When darkness set in, she finally went under the building, emerging with her four young.
School district communications manager Jodie Wilson stressed that staff did no intentionally trap the pups and that they had looked beneath the portable before sealing the den.
"Before it was boarded up yesterday, there were three men down there with flashlights, specifically looking for signs of coyotes (and) pups, and they found (and) saw nothing. If the pups were underneath the portable, boarding it up with them underneath was never intentional and would have been rectified immediately if it had been brought to the attention of the school district directly instead of through the media," she said in an email to the NOW.
Dan Straker, a coordinator from Co-exiting with Coyotes, visited the site Wednesday, crawled underneath the portable on his belly, filming with his IPhone, to make sure there were no pups present before the site was sealed again.
Straker said he saw a few places the coyote had dug under the portable.
"There was just a bunch of garbage under there. It kind of confirmed they were using that area as a feeding area. They've kind of moved along now," he said. "Keeping school yards clean of garbage is really important."
Earlier, Straker said the pups may have to go into a rehabilitation centre if the mom doesn't move them to a safe place, but now he thinks that's unnecessary.
"The coyote mom learned a valuable lesson on where to put a den," he said. "They are intelligent animals, and she knows what she did. She knows it was a mistake. She won't do it again."
On Friday, Co-exiting with Coyotes will be presenting a coyote awareness program at the school, Straker added. Co-exiting with Coyotes is a public awareness program about urban coyotes.
To see Causier's video, go to Jennifer Moreau's blog at www.burnabynow.com.
