None of these creatures are stupid. They have been making their
accommodations with humanity and staying out of our way while food
falls of our tables. I have watched while even raptors have made
their homes in the urban environment in the last few years.
We obviously do not want bears or wolves around either but the treat
is there and has been a source of conflict. We have learned to
protect our pets and are a bit more careful with our children.
Fortunately they all hunt at night when we go indoors anyway.
What they are doing for us is controlling the wild small animal
population and that is actually welcome. The only time is actually
ever saw a recently arrived coyote was in the early morning as I was
driving a block from my home. The dogs and cats soon learn to make
themselves scarce at night.
The Carnivores Next
Door
Posted by Amy
Briggs
First it was
the raccoons. Next came the coyotes. And then? Bigger
carnivores. Urban and suburban areas in North America are home to a
lot of small, wild predators, and now scientists believe that the
coyote’s success in adapting to an urban lifestyle could pave the
way for larger carnivores to move in.
Ohio State University
professor Stan Gehrt has been studying coyote populations near
Chicago for 12 years (his team’s research found the coyotes to
be monogamous). He described the research in a talk at EcoSummit
2012, an international conference held in Columbus, Ohio.
One of the coyote
groups under observation occupies the smallest known coyote territory
ever observed—about a third of a square mile. To Gehrt: “That’s
an indication that they don’t have to go far to find food and
water. They’re finding everything they need right there, in the
suburbs of Chicago. It amazes me.”
Coyotes are the
largest mammalian carnivores—so far—to have adapted and thrived
in an urban setting. Gehrt believes that “The coyote is the test
case for other animals. Raccoons, skunks, foxes—they’ve already
been able to penetrate the urban landscape pretty well. The coyote is
the most recent and largest. The jury’s out with what’s going to
happen with the bigger ones.”
So who are the bigger
ones poised to invade? Wolves, mountain lions, and bears,
for a start. Mountain lions are making appearances near cities
already—including the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago and
recently in Des Moines, Iowa. A family of black bears has
recently been spotted roaming the suburban streets Cedar Grove,
New Jersey.
According to Gehrt,
it’s these larger mammals that “are going to be an even bigger
challenge.” It used to be that humans moved to urban areas to get
away from the dangers of living near big predators. Now, it seems the
carnivores are following us.
“The funny thing is
that now we have more people on Earth and bigger cities than ever, we
also now have carnivores moving into cities. It’s a two-way street:
We’re expanding cities into their territories and they’re also
coming in,” said Gehrt, who also holds appointments with the Ohio
Agricultural Research and Development Center and Ohio State
University Extension.
“It used to be rural
areas where we would have this challenge of coexistence versus
conflict with carnivores. In the future, and I would say currently,
it’s cities where we’re going to have this intersection between
people and carnivores,” he said. “We used to think only little
carnivores could live in cities, and even then we thought they
couldn’t really achieve large numbers. But we’re finding that
these animals are much more flexible than we gave them credit for and
they’re adjusting to our cities.
“That’s going to
put the burden back on us: Are we going to be able to adjust to them
living with us or are we not going to be able to coexist?”
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