Coyote shot near Toronto after girl bitten

Halton regional police say they shot and killed a coyote in Oakville, Ont., on Thursday — and they're warning people in the community to be on the lookout for others. 

Eight-year-old Julia Couto  was bitten by a coyote after the animal jumped a fence and came into a backyard where she and a friend were playing.

The girls ran for the house with the coyote chasing them.

"It was, like, right behind me, right behind my feet when I was running up the stairs," Julia told CBC News.

"We saw the coyote in front of the door," she said.  "I think it wanted to come inside the house."

Her friend's father called police who came to investigate. 

The child was not seriously injured.

"Julia's doing fine," her mother Jenny said on Friday morning.

"I mean she had three or four bite marks on her legs — her right leg — and the snowpants and the pants, there's no visible tear in them, but she does have broken skin from the pressure of the bite and, you know, [her leg is] bruised and swollen."

Police managed to track down a coyote on a pathway in a greenbelt area and shot it.

"[But police] can't be 100 per cent certain that the one [they shot] is the one that attacked," said her mother, so as a precaution doctors have recommended the little girl undergo treatment for rabies.

People in the area around Canonridge Circle, near Bronte Road and Dundas Street West, are being asked to keep an eye out for other coyotes. 

Jenny Couto says her daughter and her friends will probably be changing their route home from school, too.

"We live in a beautiful neighbourhood and we back onto a ravine.  It certainly was a scary ordeal and it's going to make me more mindful in terms of her walking home from school — I mean typically the girls usually do walk on the back of the ravine and come in through the back, but I think that's going to be changing."