Coyotes In The City: Could Urban Bears Be Next?

Though this article is from 2012 when I found it it seemed worth sharing. I would this this coyote likely was raised as a pup by humans to be this comfortable around people. However, Coyote pups even though there are cute as a button have not been inbred like dogs have been to be friendly when adults to humans. For example, my father was born in the copper mining town of Morenci, Arizona when my granfather was an Electrical Contractor wiring up all the miners residences then for the copper mining company. My Uncle Bob was about 6 years old and my Dad was 2 or 3. Bob had a Coyote as a pet in a cage because he had caught it as a pup. However, coyotes are great as puppies but they are still going to grow up wild and might bite you because they are naturally feral and not domesticated by nature. As a teenager the coyote got out of the cage and bit my Dad(then age 2 or 3) in his side and it almost killed him and then after biting my uncle Bob many times in the leg while he protected his little brother from being killed the family dog came to the rescue and drove the coyote away. A week later when they were able to drive 50 miles away to the nearest doctor then in 1918, the doctor said it had come withing 1/100 of an inch of my Dad's right kidney and if that had happened likely he would have died before they got to a doctor. So, even though coyote puppies are wonderful they don't usually grow up to be good pets that won't bite you or eat your other pets or little children if they are available. (I don't think a single coyote would attack a child over 5 years old unless it was really starving). But, a group of coyotes like a group of wolves might do almost anything.

Coyotes In The City: Could Urban Bears Be Next?

by David Schultz

October 05, 2012 9:30 AM ET

A coyote takes a ride on a light rail train in Portland, Ore., back in 2002. The wild canines are becoming more and more comfortable living in cities.

Dennis Maxwell/AP

Meet the new urbanites: They have long, furry muzzles, piercing, yellow eyes and are very, very wily.
They're coyotes.
Until recently, scientists who study wildlife thought coyotes couldn't live in heavily populated areas. Wild carnivorous animals and humans don't typically mix.
But, as we've , those scientists were proven wrong. There have been coyote sightings in dozens of U.S. cities — , , , even . Like the fox, the skunk and the raccoon before it, the coyote is the latest predatory animal to make the city its home.

, a professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University, said coyotes are now the largest carnivorous animal in many urban areas. But, in a presentation earlier today in Columbus, Ohio, Gehrt predicted they may not hold that title for very long. He said there's already evidence that even larger carnivores — think wolves, mountain lions and even bears — are beginning to encroach onto the city space.
"Coyotes are right now kind of testing out the urban boundary," Gehrt told us. "They're forcing people to really evaluate and reflect on what are our limits going to be. What are we going to let live in the cities?"
He said the way coyotes have adapted to city life is a model for how larger animals could do the same. Unlike in rural areas, urban coyotes are the top predator — there's no animal above them on the local food chain. Gehrt said humans are the only animals that pose a threat to urban coyotes, and the wild canines have taken some remarkable steps to avoid encounters with us.

Scientists tracked one coyote in Chicago during 2010 and mapped where it went. Many of the locations shown here are along the city's famous Lake Shore Drive.

"They're doing things we didn't think they could do," he said. "They became totally nocturnal. They'll eat human food. They became really good at finding natural prey, even in areas of concrete and steel."
Gehrt said coyotes now have longer life expectancies in downtown Chicago than they do just 50 miles away in the cornfields of rural Illinois, where they have to dodge trappers and hunters to stay alive.
So what does this mean for larger animals? Are we going to see bears wandering past skyscrapers anytime soon?
On the one hand, it's hard to see how an animal as large as a bear could become as inconspicuous in urban areas as coyotes have become. But on the other hand, we're already getting more bear sightings in suburban, residential areas — places like , , and Gehrt said, in some cities, brown bears are foraging through trash at night, "acting like raccoons but hundreds of pounds heavier."
Gehrt said this trend is setting up an inevitable conflict — wild animals are becoming more and more comfortable in populated areas at the same time that people are becoming less and less accepting of the killing of those wild animals.
"I've seen both sides of it," he said. "I've studied animals and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. They humble me on a daily basis. But I've also seen the damage they can do. I've had to talk to the mother of a child that was killed by carnivores. That doesn't leave you."
(David Schultz is an intern on NPR's Science Desk.)
end quote from:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/10/05/162300544/coyotes-in-the-city-could-urban-bears-be-next

By the way I know for a fact that urban bears including Grizzlies are common in places like Anchorage, Alaska. And Urban Moose are pretty normal too. But I'm 6 foot 5 and I only come up to the shoulder of a teenager moose.(I had this experience of being within 3 to 4 feet of a teenager moose and I felt pretty vulnerable standing there without a weapon or a tree nearby to climb.) So, if you hit one with a car or startle one under the wrong circumstances you might not survive that encounter either. A friend of mine hit a moose by accident with his car and it took out his hood and front window on his car in Yellowstone once within the last 10 years. The moose rolled over the top of his car (A Subaru Outback all wheel drive) and got up after the encounter and walked away.