Coyotes and White-Tailed Deer are two of the most “conspicuous” wildlife species in urban areas. They have constantly been in a predator-prey relationship since their ranges overlapped. Coyotes typically predate on fawns and scavenge on carrion from adults. This study hypothesized that “both deer and coyote detections will increase with distance to urban center; and decrease with housing density, road density, and human visitation” (Magle et. al, 2014). The researchers had a suspicion that human disturbance will cause more impact to the coyotes directly. The white-tail deer require quality vegetation and have to be selective on habitat traits to survive. Coyotes can have ranges that lack all green space as long as there is adequate food supply being other animals. They also hypothesized that “coyote and deer detections will increase with proximity to water, habitat-patch area, and canopy cover” (Magle et. al, 2014).

Methods

Using camera traps, the researchers followed three, 50km transects going away from Chicago’s urban center. These transects cover many forms of civilization being urban, suburban, exurban, and forest. Each transect contained 10, 5km sections that contained at least 2 stations, but not more than 4 in locations that contained potential habitat. 4 times a year a camera was deployed at each station for 30 days. They applied coyote attracting lures to each location. Using GIS, they quantified landscape attributes that can be used to understand the animals’ presence around human disturbances.

Results

1055/4679 photos were of deer and coyotes. 93 cameras total were operating during majority of the study. 22/93 of the cameras were never triggered by deer or coyotes. Deer were positively correlated to canopy cover and negatively correlated to distance to water source. Seasonal colonization of deer were negatively affected by housing density, patch area, and photos of humans and dogs on cameras. Coyotes detection had a positive correlation to season and canopy cover and distance from urban center. Coyotes displayed a negative affect when humans and dogs were reported on cameras. The presence of deer had no affect on the coyotes as to favor or not favoring their appearance. Deer did have a correlation with coyote appearance and was negatively affected if a coyote had been around recently. Urban center distance to locations where animals were reported on camera had no significant relationship. Deer were most active around dawn and dusk but coyotes were more active around midnight and miday. Hypothesis were supported by their research that both species would select patches on basic requirements. Deer appeared to show a pattern that in a habitat limited area, such as urban landscapes, they do not perceive threats as cautiously as they would in a rural environment. They are more willing to take risk to forage in urban landscapes where predators have been than they would in rural areas.

1. S. B. Magle, L. S. Simoni, E. W. Lehrer, J. S. Brown, Urban predator–prey association: Coyote and deer distributions in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Urban Ecosystems. 17, 875–891 (2014).

Overview

Urban coyote sightings are becoming more and more common and are eliciting attention from every direction. Coyotes will shift their hunting patterns if they commonly visit an urban area. They do so by becoming more nocturnal and coming out during times of the night that has less human activity. Urban carnivores, such as coyotes, are likely to visit residential yards for a multitude of reasons. One reason can be due to individual health. Urban wildlife have began associating humans with food, anthropogenic food that is, and this is causing an increase in human wildlife interactions/conflicts. A sick coyote is definitely more likely to search for an easy meal and urban residents often have just what the sick animal is looking for. When an animal is sick, they are said to have a greater acceptance of risk, which can explain why sick animals are more willing to approach objects that a healthy carnivore would be afraid of. Mange has been the most common disease that has been noted from previous studies in sick urban coyotes. Hypothesis for this study was that coyotes use residential yards that contain anthropogenic food sources but also contain cover to conceal them and can vary amongst their body condition. The study took place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The coyotes were trapped using padded foothold traps. They were then collared and released. They created 7 landcover types and 4 land use categories to understand a coyotes habitat selection. They also decided to research the time of day that coyotes were entering these residential areas to understand the correlation between human activity and coyote activity.

Results

Healthy coyotes were 4 times more likely to avoid residential areas than sick coyotes even though all but 2 coyotes avoided urban settings. Coyotes tended to avoid residential areas more during the daytime hours than at night. Backyards with fences were 67% less likely to be selected by coyotes, 22% more likely to contain a food source, 3.3% of yards preferred had more cover and 1.3% had more fallen fruit. Diseased coyotes did tend to use residential areas more during the daytime hours than healthy coyotes. Sick coyotes were using anthropogenic housing more frequent then healthy coyotes. With these results, it led the researchers to believe that human-carnivore interactions are more likely to be caused by a sick animal trying to live an easier life than a healthy specimen.

Implications

This study can help explain many reasons one may be seeing an urban carnivore. Some key components to take away from this study is ensuring all trash is kept up and locked up, yards are fenced, bushes are trimmed, decks are sealed off and compost piles are not smelly or wide open. Some things that I think should be taken into consideration is the time of the year. Certain times of the year can change habits. In a time of the year where there is less natural food, you may be more willing to see an urban predator. During spring when young is born for all species, it is likely that there will be less activity seen in an urban environment. Also, location can play a big role in this. This study was only focused in one city in Canada. Different parts of North America can contain coyotes with different habits and mindsets. Chicago is notorious for having coyotes seen during the daytime. They have gotten used to people and there is loads of anthropogenic food sources there.

Source

M. H. Murray, C. C. St. Clair, Predictable features attract urban coyotes to residential yards. The Journal of Wildlife Management. 81, 593–600 (2017).

We have all seen it, news articles on human wildlife conflicts with coyotes. These are never good interactions as most of the time coyotes are attacking someone’s pet. Sometimes you see videos of a coyote catching a squirrel and people get mad at the coyote for doing so. Why? He has to catch his own meal. He would be doing the same thing in the woods where you can’t see them. This article studied the effects on anthropogenic foods on urban and rural coyotes and tried to find a correlation with the coyotes that caused conflict and their anthropogenic food consumption and overall health.

Urban coyotes that were studied came from Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Rural coyotes came from Elk Island National Park and Ministik Lake. Elk Island National park is a fenced park and Ministik is a bird sanctuary closed to the public. Scat collection was a way they were studying food choices by coyotes in all locations. Edmonton produced 531 scats and Calgary produced 484 scats. Calgary was collected between 2006-2007 and Edmonton was collected between 2009-2012. I am not sure why they were collected this many years apart and I believe they should have been collected more closely in time. Cities can change a fair amount in 6 years and that can change the diet of these carnivores. Elk Island had 1221 scats and once again a big time difference; these were from 1994-2000. There was no scat collected in Minisitk but collected from Wasbasca, a nearby town that allowed the public to enter. In my opinion, none of this collection seems very consistent as many things can change in that wide of a time period. Hair collection was another way data was collected. It turns out you can understand an animals diet by examining different parts of their guard hairs. Hair was from live-trapped animals or from deceased animals via car collisions or hunting.

The results were similar to what one would expect. Urban coyotes had a more diverse diet than rural coyotes. Shocker right? But urban coyotes did contain more species diversity in their scat than did rural coyotes. This is likely due to pets and other urban-centered critters that have better success living in urban environment than a rural environment. Urban coyotes that were reported for conflict had diets that contained more of anthropogenic food sources, had a lower body class score and more likely had mange than rural coyotes. None of the rural coyotes reported appeared to be unhealthy. Contrary to what the media shows us, coyotes predated less on pets than other mammal classes. Urban coyotes predated more on smaller mammals than rural coyotes did but predated much less on larger mammals than rural coyotes do. Out of the urban coyotes that were reported were involved in a human-wildlife conflict, all of them showed signs of low body score or have a manage infestation. Rural coyotes reported in human-wildlife conflict all appeared healthy. Urban coyotes reported had a much lower protein intake and higher anthropogenic intake than rural coyotes.

Urban coyotes were shown to have a much higher diversity in caloric consumption than did rural coyotes. They proved that pets are one of the lowest predated on groups by coyotes no matter in urban or rural locations. Coyotes in an urban environment that were reported had lower quality health and were more likely to be to weak to hunt properly or were sick with mange. I was very intrigued in this research with my business being heavily revolved around human-wildlife conflict. Coyotes is a very common call I experience and it is likely they are feeding on pet chickens that are free ranging or just roaming through the yard. Rarely are they seen trying to attack any pets. I would have preferred that their data collection been closer together in time period. Having a range from 1994-2012 is a large time period and lots can change in an area resulting in change to a species’ diet and actions.

1. M. Murray et al., Greater consumption of protein‐poor anthropogenic food by urban relative to rural coyotes increases diet breadth and potential for human–wildlife conflict. Ecography. 38, 1235–1242 (2015).