Wen | Gong Xiaoli
Which animals will increase in numbers as human urbanization does not decrease?
Very little, but not none.
For example, in the United States, raccoons in New York, sea lions in San Francisco, crocodiles in New Orleans, moose in Anchorage... All are little by little adapted in the city to coexist with humans.
An urban coyote with a tracking collar
There is also a surprising animal, the coyote.
For decades, humans have cut down forests and killed medium- and large carnivores, which in turn has helped coyotes expand their range. Coyotes have followed the process of urbanization and have survived well in human society, and their habitat has increased by about 40% compared with a hundred years ago.
Coyote expansion chart
Like rats or raccoons, coyotes are adept at using urban resources to survive: they are not picky eaters, have very low requirements for their nests, and thrive freely through city blocks and parks, just like on open grasslands.
Thousands of coyotes have lived a noisy urban life in North America, and humans have to try to adapt to the life of dancing with wolves.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > U.S. cities have become home to coyotes </h1>
Coyote (left) and gray wolf (right)
Native to North America, coyotes resemble gray wolves, but weigh only 7-20 kilograms, far smaller than gray wolves, and are small and medium-sized canines.
Mountain lions are natural enemies of coyotes
Coyotes feed on small animals such as rabbits, rats, and lizards in the wild, and their habitat overlaps with prey such as mountain lions, gray wolves, and lynxes, so their populations have always been suppressed by natural predators.
In the 1920s, North Americans began hunting all breeds of wolves to protect farms, and by the mid-20th century, the U.S. government had poisoned about 6.5 million wolves.
In the 1970s, people began to pay attention to animal rights and the coexistence of people and animals, but large predators such as mountain lions have been removed from human range, making more room for coyotes.
By 2016, the coyotes' habitat had expanded by nearly 40 percent compared to the beginning of the previous century, and people suddenly found that coyotes were scattered everywhere, and their footprints were spread across almost all states except Hawaii, and many coyotes even directly settled in the city.
Coyotes looking for food in garbage
This is related to the coyotes' feeding habits, which are almost non-rejecting for food, fruits, vegetables, corn, all kinds of meat, just by turning over the garbage can, it can always be full.
Coyotes wandering around city street corners
Even, coyotes, like humans, prefer to live in wealthier areas of the city, experts explain, probably because they are attracted to larger yards, which means there are more hiding places and it is easier to find abundant food in the garbage.
Urban coyote feces contain residual garbage, fruit and pet cat hair
On the streets of American cities, people have long been accustomed to the presence of coyotes.
In 2015, New York police dispatched police cars and helicopters to try to drive a coyote out of downtown Manhattan's Riverside Park, and three hours later the chase ended with police losing their target.
Coyote lying on the park meadow
Raphael Kaplan, who lives in Los Angeles, is only 10 years old, and while walking with his family, he saw two coyotes lying on the grass through the fence around the golf course.
Raphael did not panic, for the two coyotes were often dangling in the streets near his house.
Coyote playing golf
The camera of a california resident in the United States captured an uninvited guest in his backyard, a coyote wolf swinging into the backyard, and playing golf.
Coyote "Willie"
The Rick family, who live near Oaklele in Wisconsin, even turned a coyote named "Willie" into a pet, and over the years, "Willie" has fully integrated into the extended family, and likes to doze off in the bed of Rick's daughter Hayley, and will play games with Hayley and Rick.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Coyotes adapt to survive in human society </h1>
"Chicago has more than 4,000 coyotes." Stanley Goert, a biologist at Ohio State University, tracked more than 800 coyotes in Chicago with GPS collars, one of which was a she-wolf numbered 748, which was of particular interest to him.
748 is not afraid of people, often appears during the day, patrolling the territory back and forth on the sidewalk, and it must often come out to feed, because there are five small coyotes waiting to be fed in the nest.
Coyote cubs
To Gerter's surprise, Nest 748 was located on the top floor of the parking lot at Soldiers Stadium in downtown Chicago, a hidden corner covered by concrete slabs.
Home to the Chicago Bears, the course is not remote and is surrounded by Lakefront Boulevard, a sculpture park and a pier that can accommodate thousands of boats.
Experts need to use the receiving device to find coyotes with collars
"I've never seen a coyote that builds a nest in such a downtown location to feed its cubs." "It seems that 748 has successfully found a way to survive in the human community," Gort said. ”
Coyotes that come out at night to feed
Coyotes are usually active during the day, but the 748 will prey at night.
It waits for traffic lights, knows how to avoid traffic, catches small animals such as rats, squirrels and marmots, and eats fruit and bird eggs from trees.
Urban coyotes learned to cross the street
The days didn't always go hand in hand, and after a few months of being marked, No. 748 attacked a dog.
At that time, the dog was being led by the owner to walk, and No. 748 approached and launched a provocation, and the dog owner kicked No. 748 away and drove it away.
"Probably because the dog was too close to its cubs, 748 felt threatened."
To avoid more intense clashes, Gelt and his team used noise and paintball guns to move 748.
A few days later, No. 748 left the nest in the stadium with his cubs.
The story of No. 748 shows that, like raccoons and white-tailed deer, coyotes are very adapted to living around humans.
While other canine wild animals, such as gray wolves, usually require more space and more prey, coyotes, like wild dogs, can breed among patchy urban green spaces, and in the unfortunate case, the garbage bins in the city cans make it easy for them to find carrion.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > humans and pets are constantly attacked by wolves </h1>
Humans and coyotes don't always get along harmoniously.
In Culver City, California, people have long hated coyotes, and in 2018, more than 50 pet cats in the city died in the mouth of coyotes.
Save Our Pets is calling for the trapping of coyotes
People who have lost their pets have formed Save Our Pets to pressure the government to expel or trap some of the local coyotes and euthanize them.
Experts familiar with coyotes believe that yelling or throwing sticks is enough to scare away coyotes, but pet owners counter that attacks often occur when owners are separated from their pets.
People who lost their cats built memorial boxes and wrote their names around
A owner who lost his cat recalled sadly that the scream did not scare off the coyotes, it picked up the slain cat, ran a few feet away, and continued to eat.
Even more gruesome is the increase in direct attacks by coyotes.
In January, near chicago's Museum of Natural History, a coyote attacked a 5-year-old boy, leaving him injured and admitted to the hospital.
The father who killed the coyote with his bare hands was also bitten by the coyote
That same month, in Kensington, New Hampshire, a father crushed the coyote to the ground with his bare hands until it suffocated as the coyote tried to drag away his two-year-old son.
Coyote-infested warning signs on city streets
Soon after, Kensington police received another report that a 62-year-old woman and her pet dog had been attacked by coyotes.
Coyote attacks a pet dog
The old woman said that as soon as she opened the gate, the puppy was bitten by a coyote outside, and the woman tried to drive the coyotes away, but she herself was also bitten.
In urban environments, the relationship between coyotes and humans is extremely complex.
The fire brigade rescues coyotes who have fallen into the water
Just the day before the attack on the 5-year-old boy in Chicago, the same fire brigade that took the boy to the hospital had just rescued a coyote from Lake Michigan, and after the coyote was rescued, he was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center and taken to good care.
Experts believe that coyotes are carnivores and scavengers in cities, effectively controlling the number of rabbits, voles and squirrels in the wild.
And, compared to the number of people in cities who are bitten by dogs each year, the probability of humans being attacked by coyotes is still very low.
From 1960 to 2006, the United States reported only 142 coyotes attacking people.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > human goodwill feeding exacerbates human-wolf conflict </h1>
Some cities try to drive away coyotes.
In 2016, San Francisco held a hearing on the coyote issue.
The scene of the hearing
"Coexistence is really a farce", "We pay taxes, coyotes don't pay taxes, and they are killing our pets, even our families", "Our cities don't need coyotes"...
No matter how excited the residents may be, in fact, the city cannot completely get rid of the coyotes.
Borderlands will soon be occupied by new coyotes
Experts believe that wiping out a coyote population in an area is equivalent to freeing up a no-man's land, which will soon be occupied by other coyotes.
Moreover, once people hunt coyotes, they will stimulate them to accelerate reproduction, with higher average births and faster growth of young, to compensate for the high mortality rate of the population.
"Discovered, slipped, slipped..."
The United States kills more than 400,000 coyotes a year, but it has never stopped their expansion.
Mitchell, a biologist in Rhode Island, followed and studied coyotes and discovered the main reason why humans and coyotes can't live in harmony — the kind but wrong behavior of humans.
Pet dog attacked
Near the site of a pet dog attack in Rhode Island, Mitchell went door to door asking, "Have you ever seen a coyote?" ”
An elderly couple replied with great certainty: "No, no... There are no coyotes here. ”
After several investigations, Mitchell confronted them again: "I know you're feeding the coyotes. ”
The scene was extremely embarrassing, and when they heard that there was a pet dog attack nearby, the old couple agreed not to feed the coyotes again.
"Like many people who like to see wild animals begging from the back door of their homes, they don't realize the serious consequences of feeding." Mitchell said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Carnivores Research Institute in Utah has observed eight local coyotes and found that if humans intentionally feed coyotes, coyotes are no longer afraid of humans.
Some coyotes are becoming less afraid of humans
"If you don't leave after feeding and keep staring at it, it becomes more and more fearless." The head of the research institute, Schell, said.
The more contact with humans, the bolder the coyote became.
Researchers at North Carolina State University also believe that coyotes have strong risk assessment capabilities. In rural areas, they avoid humans in all their actions, because a daring coyote would be shot on the spot, but in cities, it's not a problem.
In Southern California, some residents in southern California, because of the heat, placed clear water outside the backyard wall for the coyote to drink, did not want to "lure the wolf into the hospital", their pet unfortunately became a good meal for the coyote.
Mitchell also witnessed how the coyotes, the "naval camp," were wiped out under human feeding.
Coyotes that are not fed will hunt squirrels and voles on their own
The naval camp consisted of 9 coyotes and was originally located near the Newport Naval Base. However, when the humans of Holm Park often fed the members of the camp with food such as turkeys, they abandoned their original large hunting grounds and allowed the territory to be occupied by another group of coyotes.
"Coyotes that are fed are dead." This is Mitchell's mantra and a harbinger of the fate of the coyotes in the naval camp.
Winter came, interest in feeding coyotes was greatly reduced, and the naval camp tried to retake the old territory, but without success.
Later, some coyotes were killed by cars on the road, and some spent their days wandering outside schools and neighborhoods, or rummaging through garbage cans or following dog walkers in the hope that someone would throw something for them to eat.
This caused panic among the local population, and eventually, the police set out to shoot the leading she-wolf and euthanize her newborn baby.
"All along, it was human intervention that caused trouble." Wildlife scientist Charlie Brown said.
Resources
Npr：There Are Up To 4,000 Coyotes In The Chicago Area, But Experts Say Don't Approach Them
chicagotribune：Thousands of coyotes live in the Chicago area. But attacks on people, like the one that left a young boy injured, are extremely rare.
wttw：Why Are Coyotes Thriving in the Chicago Area?
wttw：Urban Nature: ‘A Coyote Comeback’
daily: Keeping Up with the Carnivores
sciencenewsforstudents: Are coyotes moving into your neighborhood?
theverge：How coyotes made their homes in America’s cities