Are Coyotes or Humans the Perpetrators of Suburban Animal Attacks?

A coyote howls, its characteristically pointed muzzle aimed high toward the night sky. But the moon is not visible over this brightly lit Target store parking lot in Matamoras, Penn.—only a glowing globe atop a metal pole casting its electric illumination on the pavement.

Although similar scenes are becoming increasingly common in the U.S.—even New York’s Central Park is currently accommodating a coyote—this one is a pretender. The animal is stuffed, and the scene is being staged by New York City–based photographer, Amy Stein. “I started out with the idea that the coyote has been dislocated from its natural environment,” Stein says. “But it’s more resourceful than I thought. The coyote is reclaiming a new environment: the human environment.”

The recent expansion of the coyote (Canis latrans) into all of the lower 48 states, including large metropolitan areas, has touched both the hearts and nerves of people. Reports of coyotes threatening pets, livestock, even humans pervade the media. And as coyote hunting competitions grow in popularity, so do societies aimed at protecting the species. Meanwhile, scientists are busy studying coyote behavior to learn how altering human behavior might help us get along with these alleged usurpers.

“By understanding how this animal adapts to changes in the environment, we can determine what we really need to be concerned about and what we really should be doing,” says Stephen DeStefano, a conservation biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and author of the new book, Coyote at the Kitchen Door: Living with Wildlife in Suburbia (Harvard University Press, 2010). (DeStefano and Stein shared a stage January 23 for a discussion of urban wildlife at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Mass.)  Read Article

By Lynne Peeples