What was that?
- Image by Chris Seufert via Flickr
All kinds of wildlife roadkill are a predictable occurrence on Minnesota roads. It’s not unusual to observe whitetail deer, raccoons, Canada geese, and ducks as well as domestic animals and assorted vermin in or at the side of the road. Still, one morning as I was delivering my daughter to school at 50 mph (we were pretty much always in a hurry, but that’s another story), an unusual carcass caught my eye. “That’s either a yellow German shepherd – not very likely, or a coyote,” I thought. “What’s a coyote doing here in Minnetonka, of all places?”
Of all places, indeed. As it turns out, suburban Minneapolis (along with most every other North American suburban and urban area) happens to be regular habitat for an ever-growing number of coyotes. A few months later, my friend Judy mentioned that she thought she had seen a coyote skulking around her yard. Beyond her property line is woods and wetlands – again, not unusual in suburban Minneapolis. It’s the perfect place to set up coyote housekeeping, with all kinds of prey to keep a coyote family’s bellies full.
Sweet Home, Chicago
Ohio State University has done an extensive study of coyote urbanization in its Cook County, Illinois Project. At the behest of Cook County Animal Control, with funding from wildlife and forest conservation groups, OSU examined ecological characteristics, conflicts between human and coyote populations, and management implications inherent in habituation. I thought the most striking finding in the study mirrored my own experience: we co-exist with coyotes, most often completely unaware of their presence, in unexpected citified environments.
Coyotes have been spotted in such diverse urban settings as New York’s Central Park, Kansas City, Beverly Hills, Boston and Detroit. Originally dwelling in the grasslands of the more Western United States, coyotes have proven themselves to be opportunistic and adaptable. Their range has expanded to every state except Hawaii, primarily because their chief predator, the wolf, was more systematically eradicated. Because coyotes are more nocturnal, sightings are minimized, despite heightened awareness by the more sensational aspects of press coverage.
While attacks on humans are fairly rare, coyotes appear to consider free-ranging pets as rightful supplements to their regular diet of rodents, rabbits, young deer and eggs. Most of the problems with habituation appear to have a human component, though, in that some of us feed coyotes, intentionally or not. Unsecured garbage bins, food for pets left outside, and unattended small domestic animals are all part of the problem. Studies of attacks in Southern California revealed a higher frequency of human-related food as part of the equation. Once coyotes associate our homes and yards as sources of food, they are more frequently seen during the day, and so encounter us more frequently as well.
What Good are Coyotes?
Coyotes, like wolves, have been the victims of a lot of bad press. They do serve a purpose in the ecological system, one which perhaps has been distorted by human efforts at management. Urban deer populations are exploding, primarily because of lack of predators. Coyotes do have an effect by keeping the deer somewhat in check. Reductions in rodent populations are also a beneficial effect. Growth in the numbers of Canada geese has been slowed, as well, once coyotes have introduced into nesting areas.
A Live Sighting
- Image via Wikipedia
Several weeks ago, a group of us at Judy’s home spotted the coyote she had mentioned to us earlier. Excitedly, we gathered at the patio door to see him peering around the corner of the garage next door, no more than 50 feet away. This large coyote appeared to be healthy and well-fed. Though he wasn’t particularly bold, the sighting in broad daylight was confirmation that there was more than sufficient food supply in our suburban world to entice and support a good coyote lifestyle.
As his wild animal eyes met mine, there was mutual acknowledgment. Here we both were. And neither one of us was going anywhere.
Related reading:
- Coyote Bites Jogger in Griffith Park (laist.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=f267b885-3c64-4166-b323-cb2b7f3fde54)
|
Share the love
|
Get free updates
|
Peter and Betsy Wuebker are location-independent professionals who share what they know about travel, simplicity and integrating work with life. 
Beautiful creature. It makes me want to get myself a wolf-like type of dog. I love being in the city so much that I can’t fathom being in a rural place anymore. I’d probably be one of those crazy types to go, “Holy crap…I just saw a squirrel!!”
Matthew Dryden´s last blog post..Talking
I was born and raised in a city. I wouldn’t know it was a coyote even if it was staring me in the face. I’m not proud of that.. just the way things are.
We have lots of coyotes in our back yard and they are so noisy when they mate…will keep one up all night. Ours look scraggly and like sickly dogs, but they got to be such a problem stalking houses with babies and disposable diapers…the State gathered them up and moved them back into the less urban areas. We are also attempting to re introduce wolves into our area…and the deer population is way out of control – but not the neighbor’s cat collections…One who lives down hill from us was found to be feeding about 50 cats, until the coyotes moved in…
We could use some natural selection around here…
Makes me wonder about the Federal Government keeping supplying wolves to Alaska so that the Palins can shoot them down with helicopters every weekend….
Patricia´s last blog post..I Request the Honor of your Comments
Hi Matthew – Coyotes can breed with dogs, so you could have a hybrid. Not sure how it would work domesticated in the city, though. Thanks.
Hi Vered – Just for you: http://bit.ly/pJrR
Hi Patricia – Goes to show what happens when humans attempt to “manage.” I wonder if natural selection would take care of the person who was feeding the 50 cats?
Betsy,
You made me laugh with your last words…Thank you! I don’t know but after I wrote it, I remembered that the cats were found to be harboring a major virus, which might have made the coyotes sickly looking.
Since they have moved the coyotes out, and the cats, we are wondering what the next group of wild will join our yard this year? We get about 8-9 deer a day, we have at least 3 families of raccoon (love the apples) We had hawks last year, so the squirrel population was slowed down, and tons of possums…My favorite are all the finches in our trees….it will be fun to see what emerges later in the Spring..:)
Patricia´s last blog post..I Request the Honor of your Comments
Hi Patricia – your surroundings sound positively pastoral! We’ve had 4 point bucks – part of a small communal group across the street, foxes, raccoon, a hawk (right outside my office window not 2 feet away!). All this in a very citified first-tier suburb. Last night, my girlfriends and I were talking and we remembered that there had been a cougar sighting in Minnetonka as well. And one of my clients called and said there had been a moose outside their office windows a while back. Now that would have been something!
Betsy,
Here is the interesting part…we live right downtown…the Bay and the river /lake divided downtown of our city on one bluff sits the State Capital Building we are on the bluff straight across from the Capital building – the Lake which used to be the river delta flowing into the Sound is what separates the two bluffs. There is a buffer of trees along side of the lake and river just past the falls – the wild life uses the buffer of trees to get out to the woods on each of the points out into the sound.
It is a wonderful place for my honey to work and live, because he designs buildings which fit into the environment and are green and earth friendly…..
Oh wow! it is snowing again this morning…I thought we were done for this year?…
Your post has brought up many good things for me to think about this day – thank you
Patricia´s last blog post..I Request the Honor of your Comments
We were notified last spring that there were coyotes in the area. We already have deer, foxes, rabbits, hawks, a blue heron, and box turtles. However, the city put something called “Duck Be Gone” in our local lake (pond?) and the geese are gone. Animals have to live somewhere, and I’m always glad when I hear they’ve been relocated rather than killed off.
Dot´s last blog post..Time to Celebrate!
Our house backs up to a wildlife preserve and so far we’ve seen wild boars, gopher turtles and raccoons – oh and more than a few varieties of spiders and snakes! SHIVER! No coyotes though but maybe we need them. The wild boars aren’t “native” but were introduced here by hunters. Now we have to have trappers come in to “clear” the area.
This got me thinking about whether we have coyotes down here so I went to Google to search. One of the top “search hints” was “coyote hunting”. SIGH!
Kathy | Virtual Impax´s last blog post..Social Media – Information Moving in Real Time
Hi Dot – it sounds like coyote heaven! I wonder if there’s a derivative of Duck Be Gone called Goose Be Gone? Those varmints poop all over! Thanks.
Hi Kathy – Wild boar! Yikes, remind me not to walk in the woods! I did see a photo of a huge boar making its rounds on the internet, supposedly shot by a 9 year old or something. Crazy!
Hi Betsy – Coyotes sure are beautiful animals. We’ve had sitings in our town, but unless they start stalking kids or pets, they’re left alone. It does make me wonder why their appearance is becoming more prevalent though.
Barbara Swafford´s last blog post..Patricia Times Two
Hi Barbara – Yes, the photograph of the one in the road in particular resembles the one we saw in Judy’s yard. They are strikingly beautiful. The Chicago study references the species’ expanded habitat. It has to be food supply/adaptation. I think it’s another illustration of what can happen when we try and “manage” our resources. We get fires out of control, and ballooning populations of animals whose natural predators are no longer present. Thanks.