Coyotes spotted at my workplace

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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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