B.C. pair charged under B.C's Wildlife Act with feeding Stanley Park coyotes

A man and a woman arrested a year ago for allegedly feeding coyotes in Vancouver's Stanley Park have been charged with four offences under the Wildlife Act and must abide by specific bail conditions as their case winds its way through provincial court.

CBC News has learned that Kemthong Clasby and Terence Lee Clasby were charged on Oct. 8, 2021, under sections of the B.C. Wildlife Act related to leaving or placing attractants for dangerous wildlife.

Despite trying to confirm charges over the past year through the Ministry of Environment, which is responsible for the B.C. Conservation Officer Service (BCCOS), CBC News only learned of the charges through the B.C. Prosecution Service this week.

The Clasbys are next in court on Oct. 4, which could be used to fix a date for their trial.

On Sept. 22, 2021, conservation officers arrested two people and seized a vehicle for allegedly feeding coyotes in Stanley Park.

The arrests came a day after the park fully reopened to the public after a two-week nighttime closure to cull aggressive coyotes. The B.C. Prosecution Service said in an email that the alleged feeding incidents in the park occurred on Sept. 19 and 20, 2021.

From December 2020 until August 2021, 45 people reported being nipped or bitten by coyotes in the park, with experts arguing that the animals' habituation to humans was a factor in the attacks.

Ordered to stay out of Stanley Park

In court documents, the Clasbys, whose bail hearing is under a publication ban, were released from custody on Oct. 28, 2021, under conditions not to visit Cameron Park in Burnaby or Stanley Park unless travelling through the park along Highway 99 (the Stanley Park Causeway). 

The conditions also say they must "not possess any food or food waste, compost or other waste or garbage that could attract dangerous wildlife while in any municipal, regional or provincial park  in the province of British Columbia."

People charged with feeding wildlife can face significant fines due to the danger it poses to humans and animals. In October 2021, a woman in Whistler was fined $60,000 for methodically leaving food out for black bears in 2018, some of whom had to be destroyed by conservation officers.

The justice in the case imposed a higher fine than the one asked for in a joint submission from the Crown lawyer and the defendant's lawyer.

"I remained unpersuaded that the sentences proposed adequately reflected the gravity of the offences, the offender's culpability and the principles relevant to the offences, particularly deterrence," wrote Judge Lyndsay Smith.

Victoria Shroff, a lawyer who has practised animal law for more than 20 years and is the author of Canadian Animal Law, said the case will most likely be used in deliberations over the Stanley Park feeding case.

"The object of these court cases is to basically educate the public in a lot of ways by sending a message that this isn't going to be tolerable. This is not OK. What you are doing with animals matters."

At the time, the BCCOS said the fines imposed for the Whistler case were the highest ever under the Wildlife Act for feeding wild animals.

In 2021, after repeated warnings to the public not to feed wild animals in Stanley Park, not to leave garbage around and not to visit the park at night, the province stepped in with a coyote cull as a last resort. Four animals were destroyed while conservation officers killed seven before the park's closure.

The Vancouver Park Board has said that signs, education, better garbage receptacles and a new bylaw prohibiting the feeding of wildlife of any kind in any city park have helped eliminate aggressive coyote attacks.

The province said in an email that there have been no coyote attacks reported to the BCCOS in Stanley Park since the conclusion of the Ministry of Forest's two-week coyote trapping program.