Coyotes spotted at my workplace
Louis Proyect <lnp3 <at> panix.com>
2010-02-09 14:22:34 GMT
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No, these are the animals not the people who transport
undocumented workers.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7263558
Coyotes spotted at Columbia University
Sunday, February 07, 2010
MANHATTAN (WABC) -- Three coyotes were spotted Sunday morning on
the Columbia University campus in Morningside Heights.
The NYPD responded to the report, and an officer saw one of the
animals and confirmed that it was indeed a coyote.
The university sent an email to students to alert them of the
situation, and to warn them not to approach the coyotes if they
saw one.
Students seemed more amused than frightened by the prospect of an
encounter, with one joking that they could make nice pets.
It's not known where the coyotes came from. A few weeks ago a
young coyote was captured in Harlem and taken to the Bronx Zoo.
---
National Post, July 22, 2006 Saturday
by Shannon Proudfoot
Coyotes in the city: The adaptable grassland-dwellers are now
living among us -- did you notice?
OTTAWA - They lurk among us -- in wrecking yards, parks and
dilapidated garages -- but they are such cunning urban dwellers,
you will probably never know they are around.
In recent decades, coyotes have moved from their traditional
wilderness territories into suburban and even downtown locations
in cities across North America.
They have been spotted loping around New York, Los Angeles,
Chicago, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa,
but the most remarkable development is that their lifestyle
remains unchanged.
Coyotes are renowned as one of nature's most adaptable creatures.
They are extremely intelligent and learn quickly. The Web site of
the U.S. humane society asserts: "If there is a born survivor, it
must be the coyote."
They are built like collies, but with light grey or tan coats and
black tips on their bushy tails, and their average weight is nine
to 15 kilograms.
Coyotes are not exactly discerning diners, with a typical menu
including sheep, poultry, deer, rodents, rabbits, snakes, foxes,
carrion, birds, frogs, grass and grasshoppers, with the urban
additions of cats and small dogs (and their kibble), doughnuts,
sandwiches, fruits and vegetables.
Coyotes are also not snobby about their mate choices and have been
known to breed with wolves and domestic dogs, producing litters
with an average of six pups.
Aside from recent incursions into urban centres, their natural
territory is open grassland, but with a top speed of almost 65
km/h and the ability to scale fences 2.4 metres high, they are
hardly confined to a limited area.
The vast territory covered by urban coyotes was one of the biggest
surprises for Stan Gehrt, an assistant professor of wildlife
ecology at Ohio State University and the principal investigator in
the Cook County Coyote Project.
Since 2000, the project has tagged the ears of 250 animals and
placed radio collars on 180 of them in order to monitor their
behaviour and survival in and around Chicago.
To their astonishment, researchers found urban coyotes roam over
home territories of 80 to 95 square kilometres in the course of a
few days, and they are extremely stealthy about it.
"You wouldn't know they were there unless you had radio collars on
them," said Mr. Gehrt, estimating there are "hundreds, if not
thousands" of the animals in Chicago.
In the Ottawa area, the National Capital Commission confirms there
are permanent coyote populations in Gatineau Park and the
Greenbelt, but it has no estimate of numbers.
Mr. Gehrt traces the widespread debut of coyotes in North American
cities back about 15 years, and says the timing was "very odd"
because they appeared in disparate urban areas almost simultaneously.
The "$64,000 question" for researchers is why coyotes turned into
city-dwellers in the first place. One theory holds that when
hunting and trapping of the animals dropped off in the 1990s, the
coyote population exploded and they were forced to expand into
metropolitan areas. Others speculate that as cities grew, tendrils
of urbanization pushed out into the surrounding rural areas and
provided corridors connecting the city to traditional coyote
territory.
"It's not so much they're coming in as we're moving out, and
that's not unique to Ottawa," said Shaun Thompson, a district
ecologist with the Ministry of Natural Resources office in
Kemptville, Ont., which includes Ottawa in its territory.
"A lot of urban centres are growing, and in that growth they get
out into less urbanized and more natural environments, where the
coyotes are already established."
Whatever the reason for their change of address, coyotes have
become so adept at survival in cities that the Chicago project,
which is still ongoing, found they actually live longer than the
country cousins, who are threatened by hunting and trapping.
Mr. Thompson, who receives up to 50 calls a year about coyote
sightings, says the animal's small size and flexibility enable it
to live side-by-side with humans who are not even aware of the
dens concealed in abandoned structures, woodpiles and ravines. The
coyote's amazing intelligence also allows it to assess human
activities easily and accurately, and avoid those that are a danger.
"I suspect they know what a gun is. They know what a car is, at
least as a threat," Mr. Thompson said. "If they see you standing
on your porch 100 yards away, you're not a threat. I suspect if
you come out on the porch with a shotgun, most of them would know
the difference. They learn by experience."
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