Urban Coyotes May Be The Beginning Of Large Carnivores Moving Into Urban Areas (Guest Voice)
Urban Coyotes May Be The Beginning Of Large Carnivores Moving Into Urban Areas (via Planetsave)
The smallest coyote territory ever observed has been located around five miles from Chicago O’Hare International Airport. A coyote community has been supporting itself inside just a third of a square mile for at the very least, the past 6 years. “That’s an indication that they don’t have to…
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This is a very interesting finding. I would suppose that even in cities there are green areas, especially airports and around museums and colleges, where small mammals could thrive.
It seems all mammals can adjust to their environment if done in limited conditions. My husband and I lived in a 35ft RV for 6 months and it’s amazing how quickly one adjusts to smaller or larger space. The other article about Bhutan shows that incremental but intense change can be made successfully. Humans seem to thrive in every climate on earth given enough time to adjust; which will be tested more and more as our climate changes become more intense.
A recent event in a New England state where coyotes having wolf DNA killed and ate a young woman. A female coyote was killed and found to have human remains in her stomach. She with two others killed had wolf DNA. Coyotes are fierce omnivores willing to tackle any prey species where the coyote is confident in doing so. Hybrids of domestic dogs and coyote crossings that survive into adulthood are dangerous. These survivors retain the fierocity necessary in the wild state. Additionally these hybrids are often considerably larger. The ordinary coyote is already more than a match for most dogs and see dogs as prey items. Larger predators exist in much smaller numbers and are afraid of people. Mountian Lions and wolves (especially wolves) given the opportunity avoid people. Bears are always unpredictably dangerous.
Coyotes are highly adaptive. They follow the food. Canadian geese are grossly over-populated due to poor management by the US Fish and Wildlife Management Service. For many years it was illegal to kill Canadian Geese. Geese have adapted to urban environments where grass is plentiful and there are no predators. Coyote movement into urban areas is the result of the encouragement of urban green space, and restrictive hunting regulations. Coyotes provide a balance to the increase in urban wildlife that people are no longer able or willing to provide. Urban deer and foxes have also increased dramatically in the last decade. Wolves, big cats and bears are also adapting to urban settings. A hundred years ago, a homeowner would shoot a coyote to protect their children and chickens. Today, that homeowner would get locked up. It won’t be long until we have new government agencies created to manage urban wildlife.
I live about five miles from the city center of Portland, Oregon. At this point it’s the deer that are the real problem – I gave up on rose bushes and tomato plants years ago. But there are coyotes, saw one walking up the sidewalk in broad daylight a couple of weeks ago. If they keep the cat population down that’s OK with me and people have been instructed to keep their cats inside. There is an occasional black bear but for the most part they are harmless although they will occasionally try to get in the house.