Coyotes liking life in urban centres
Increasing presence in North American cities and towns
First it was foxes, skunks and raccoons. Now coyotes are setting up shop in increasing numbers within urban settings in North America. Are larger carnivores next?
A professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University says urban coyotes, the largest of the mid-size carnivores, may be setting the stage for their larger brethren to start migrating to cities.
“They’re the ones that are kind of pushing the envelope right now,” Stan Gehrt said, suggesting animals such as bears, wolves and mountain lions may be next.
“It used to be rural areas where we would have this challenge of coexistence versus conflict with carnivores,” said Gehrt, who gave a talk on the topic Friday at a conference in Columbus, Ohio.
“In the future, and I would say currently, it’s cities where we’re going to have this intersection between people and carnivores.”
In an interview earlier this week, Gehrt suggested cities probably evolved because it was safer for people to live in mass settlements. When people lived in a dispersed fashion “we were prey,” he said.
But that freedom from predation also works to the advantage of wild animals, which are pushing into cities in huge numbers. Gehrt described Toronto’s raccoon population, for instance, as “humongous” — a description no Torontonian would argue with.
While pet owners and homeowners in cities have been tussling with skunks and raccoons for years, coyotes have recently made appearances in urban centres far from the open range.
“They don’t have any predators in the cities,” he explained.
Greater Chicago, with a population of nine million people, is home to at least 2,000 coyotes, said Gehrt, who has studied the animals for 12 years. “That’s minimum. That’s a really conservative estimate,” he said.
Canadian cities and towns are seeing coyotes with increasing frequency as well. Calgary has a large population of the animals; some people estimate as many as 600 to 700 live in the city.
They are also seen in Saskatoon, said Dr. Emily Jenkins, a professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s department of veterinary microbiology and school of public health.
While those cities might not seem so far off the beaten track for the animals, Toronto certainly is — and yet coyotes are seen in the city from time to time. And recently in New Waterford, N.S., wildlife officials killed four of the animals after a teen girl was attacked by a coyote.
Why are carnivores encroaching on urban centres? Gehrt said the reasons are complex, and may differ from species to species.
The ranks of coyotes has swelled in recent years, with fewer people hunting and trapping the animals. But the animals are territorial and can only tolerate so many members in a pack.
When numbers get too large, young males are expelled and have to find new territory for themselves, Gehrt said.