I have kind of a fascination with the urban coyote and the role he plays in urban America. The one thing I find the most puzzling is how it seemed to adapt to city life somewhat suddenly and even more strangely almost simultaneously all across the country. The coyote is well adapted to city living so that doesn’t puzzle me all, it is the timing that puzzles me. I have been racking my brain trying to identify changes in urban settings that may have contributed to this rather dramatic sudden adaptation. Some of the things that cross my mind but might be meaningless. Leash laws being more tightly enforced, up until the 1970’s big dogs still roamed most neighborhoods and would have discouraged coyotes. Feral cat populations had grown significantly, more greenspaces being allowed for in developments. And the last one that there sems to be fewer kids on the street playing. What else??
Habitat encroachment by another invasive species.
That is the first one than most folks go to but in the case of the coyote his range spread alongside humans.
From Coyote - Wikipedia
Sounds like it could be a few different inter-related factors.
What is your basis for asserting that urban coyotes have spread suddenly and recently? This map shows them distributed across most of the US, except for the deep South, in the early 1900s, and encroaching into the South in “1940-1990”. This page has a similar animated map that shows a steady spread from 1900 to the present, and the text says “Beginning in the 1900s, coyotes began their expansion both westward and eastward from their historical range in central North America.” It also notes some reasons for the spread:
As humans moved across the continent they altered the landscape by logging, clearing land for agriculture, and developing towns and cities. Large predators such as bears and wolves were also lethally removed from many landscapes by humans. Both of these changes allowed for coyote expansion as the habitat became more suitable and the predators that limited coyote numbers through competition were suddenly gone.
I wasn’t puzzled by their rapid spread; it was the somewhat sudden adaptation to urban living that puzzled me.
Or humans came to his neck of the woods.
The coyote being a lazy hunter found out these humans left nice edibles around in big piles, just for the taking.
You know Trash.
Also, alas, pet cats and small dogs allowed to roam outside, plus feral cat populations.
The coyotes nearly wiped out the feral cat populations as well as the raccoon and possum counts. I am hoping that ones who did survive will pass on a little more coyote resistant strain. Song bird populations have improved, and some evidence that owls are moving back in because of the rats and mice.
Predators go where the food is. Urban and suburban areas offer house cats and small dogs. And the bowls of food left outside for both that bring in racoons, also prey. Bird feeders offer food for squirrels and other animals that are food for the coyotes.
And all of these prey animals are semi-tame due to the kindness of the humans that feed them. It really isn’t a mystery why you have coyotes in town.
Coyotes (and other wildlife) have learned to use rail corridors to travel in urban areas, as they are usually free of humans and cars and are often overgrown with brush. They can travel for miles and get into neighborhoods in search of food.
yes, flood control channels are another travel route. Smooth easy path.
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In Edmonton’s case, I think it went this way: The city decided that all our stormwater lakes should become ‘natural wetlands’, even though there’s nothing natural about them, and stopped cutting the grass, removing the bullrushes etc. They also stopped cutting grass on some boulevards and park areas and allowing it to go ‘natural’.
We had an explosion of mice and rabbits. For a couple of years we had mice everywhere, and rabbits so common that on any given walk you’d see one or two of them in yards, etc.
Now I don’t see as many rabbits and mice, but we have a LOT of coyotes around. We live on a stormwater lake, and we can’t let our dog out in our yard for long any more because she just barks incessantly at the coyotes. One night she was barking and I went out with a flashlight and turned it on towards the lake - and saw four or five pairs of glowing eyes looking back at me. A pack of coyotes probably trying figure out how to get at the dog.
Occassionally we’ll see one just lying in the grass, enjoying the day. If sirens go off at night, it results in a cacaphony of coyote howls.
I don’t know if I buy the ‘encroachment’ argument. We never had coyotes around 10 years ago, and now we do. There’s been no significant development in Coyote habitats in that period that I know of.
I think they just go where the food is, and our cities are increasingly providing food for coyotes. In the process they are starting to become domesticated and less afraid of people, increasing their presence. In Vancouver, some people are afraid to walk their small dogs in Stanley Park because Coyotes are now brave enough to run out of cover during the day, snatch a dog on a leash, and run away with it.
I will join the chorus in suggesting that this isn’t what actually happened. Coyotes have been underfoot around human encampments since forever. At least within their range. You may have suddenly become more aware of this, but it isn’t new.
Ref @Sam_Stone’s excellent points just above, what has been happening in North America since about the end of WW-II is the explosion of suburbia into what had been farms, woodlands, or rangelands, and the extermination of anything big enough to prey on coyotes (other than Fords). Plus of course the last 20-ish years fashion for lots of small dogs, and few roaming large ones.
To the degree modern suburbia tries for a less-clearcut more park-like look than e.g. 1965 suburbia, that will provide more habitat. Plus as Sam said, the increasing awareness on the part of government landowners that it’s “better” from an eco-greenery standpoint to leave land wild-ish than to plant grass everywhere then mow weekly. Cheaper too.
The potential unintended consequence being actually reintroducing a self-supporting, albeit still truncated, ecosystem of plants, insects, small herbivores, small carnivores, and coyotes as the apex predators enjoying this happy new buffet.
And of course however noticeable one coyote is in one town, 100 is much more than 100 times as noticeable. Couple that with the advent of the internet where we all can easily research curiosity items from all over the country, and it’d be easy to conclude that there’s been a sudden massive change.
There’s has been a sudden massive change. But it’s mostly in each of our’s ability to research items of curiousity and to obtain info about local conditions in non-local locations from non-local sources.
By sudden I am talking 50 years. I have always communicated with and read about hunting and fishing all over America. 50 years ago I heard rare mentions of coyotes in the city, each decade from that point on multiplied rapidly. Nothing to do with research beyond the fact that articles and stories have steadily increased during that same time period.
Not only Coyotes, but also Ravens- they used be be sorta rare in CA, but now they have adapted to us humans, and the lovely roadkill and garbage we leave. Not to mention mice.
Also Peregrine falcons, who have found we make the bestest cliffs, with all sorts of fat tasty stupid pigeons.
I recently read a really interesting book, Coyote America, by Dan Flores. He made the point that there are stories of coyotes frequenting human encampments from before Europeans came to the continent. He also correlates the explosion of the coyote population and their spread to the eastern US with the near obliteration of the wolf population by the government.
A couple of the issues raised above (coyote-wolf hybrids due to wolf population collapse, and urbanization) were the subject of a PBS/Nature documentary, “Meet the Coywolf.” It’s no longer available on PBS, but it’s on YouTube here. I, at least, found it fascinating.
Hybridization was my first guess, but I’m surprised it’s wolves and not domestic dogs.