Coyotes may be building dens and having litters of pups near you, according to new research from the University of Georgia . But chances are you won’t see them — even if they are denning right next door.
In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers followed 48 urban coyotes fitted with GPS tracking collars and located 20 dens throughout Atlanta. They found that more than half of the dens were in natural structures like burrows and fallen tree trunks.
“Basically, we saw that the coyotes were trying to avoid people,” said Summer Fink, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources . “The animals didn’t want to den in areas where there was a lot of human activity and development.”
Some dens did incorporate human-related items like discarded piles of concrete, an overturned boat and a large, half-buried tractor tire. The researchers suggest the coyotes’ willingness to incorporate man-made items into their dens shows how adaptable the species is. But that doesn’t mean the canines want to interact with people.
“Most people don’t even know coyotes live in our cities. This paper demonstrates that these animals are living and reproducing in the same spaces as us without people even realizing it,” said Michel Kohl , co-author of the study and an associate professor in the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources . “To me, this highlights how well coyotes are able to avoid us, which suggests that people’s fear of coyotes is often greater than the actual risk.”
The researchers did find some dens near homes and buildings, but those homes were most often vacant and the buildings abandoned.
“It seemed like coyotes were perceiving that risk, realizing there weren’t people there and deciding to den in those locations,” Fink said.
“They were more concerned with the structural integrity of their dens,” Kohl added. “As long as it was strong and it had visual cover around it to hide the coyotes from people seeing them, they were happy.”
Coyotes are now found in every state except Hawaii . And they’re in every major city from Los Angeles to Chicago to Atlanta.
“They’re an incredibly adaptive species, and they’re very intelligent,” Kohl said. “But there is likely a limit. As urbanization increases and denning locations become more limited, it is going to put further pressure on the ability of these coyote populations to sustain themselves in these urban landscapes.”
Fink and Kohl recognize that some may consider that a good thing. Coyotes get a bad rap for everything from spreading disease to eating people’s pets.
But they fill important ecological roles, particularly in urban settings.
They’re the top predator in many of these ecosystems and, as such, keep rodent and other small mammal populations in check. They eat native plants and disperse the seeds throughout the environment in their feces. And they also serve as scavengers, feasting on roadkill and cleaning up the environment.
“Without an apex predator, ecosystems can get all out of whack,” Fink said.
The study determined that Georgia coyotes give birth from mid-March through mid-April, with litters ranging from two to nine pups in the present sample. (Most pups in the den will not survive to adulthood.)
The true risk posed by coyotes to both humans and their pets is low, the researchers said. But coyotes are wild animals and protective of their young, like many other species.
Keep dogs on leashes. Don’t investigate holes that could potentially be coyote dens.
Coyotes will often attempt to lead humans away from their dens if they think they’ve been spotted rather than becoming aggressive. If you do see one, like all wild animals, avoid interacting with them.
“If you are close to a den, the parents may make themselves more visible, more noticeable,” Kohl said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with that coyote. It actually may be a behavioral ploy, so to speak, to try and get you to go somewhere else.”
Find more information on this research, as well as general information on urban wildlife including coyotes, on the Wildlife Atlanta website .
Published by Ecology and Evolution, the study was co-authored by Warnell’s Eden Nitza and Daniela Guerrero of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
All animals in the included images are handled by trained wildlife professionals with legal permits .
Ecology and Evolution
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