Category Archives: urban species

Urban Coyotes Don’t Fool Around

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Coyote pairs appear to be faithful to one another. A mated pair will stick together for years, raising their offspring together. But genetic studies of other creatures, particularly birds, has shown that there are some animals that maintain a social pair-bond while occasionally breeding with others.

A paper in the most recent issue of the Journal of Mammalogy shows that the genetics of pair-bonded coyotes in the Chicago area support the coyote pairs’ faithfulness. The offspring of the breeding male and female coyotes that shared a territory were genetically related to both parents.

Because there’s lots of food around and because other coyote territories are nearby, urban coyotes might be more tempted to, um, stray than other coyotes.

This study has implications for coyote management, particularly because a previous study showed that coyote pairs will stick together even one is surgically sterilized.

Read the paper here. (Requires subscription or fee.)

Photo by Steve Thompson, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife

Hot Weather and Urban Deer Hunters

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When the temperature approaches the 80s, do deer hunters stay home? A recent press release from the Missouri Department of Conservation shows that fewer deer were killed during urban deer hunts in years when the weather is warm than in years with more seasonable temperatures.

Similar trends are seen during regular hunting seasons, but the result is more acute during urban hunts, because they may only last a day or a few days.

The nicest thing about this press release is that it offers a few years of data, with the number of deer killed and the temperature. Add it to or compare it with your own data from urban hunts for some possible insight. Read more here.

If you are interested in urban deer, don’t miss the current issue of The Wildlife Society Bulletin, which focuses on urban deer. Articles include contraceptive use, the influence of roads and various controlled hunt issues. Read more here. (Fee or subscription required.)

Photo: courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources

Desperately Seeking Stable Corridors

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Researchers from Northern Arizona University are looking for wildlife corridors to study — but not just any corridors. They are looking for long ( from half a kilometer to 100km), wide (more than 100 meters) corridors of natural habitat through human dominated landscapes. These corridors need to have similar unconnected sites nearby to serve as a reference or control site.

For a detailed description of the ideal study site, visit this page on the study’s Web site. It even describes the wiggle room for good, but not perfect, sites.

So far, all the research on wildlife corridors has focused on short ones. There’s lots of talk about establishing longer corridors, particularly to conserve wildlife during a period of rapid climate change, but no research proving those long corridors will work, the researchers say. This study will fill that research gap.

The researchers will accept study sites in any part of the world, and are offering a reward to the first person who tells them about a suitable site that is used in the study.

Please visit docorridorswork.org for more information on the project (including links to scientific papers describing corridors and the research parameters) or to suggest landscapes for the research. Contact: Dr. Andrew Gregory, Andrew.Gregory@nau.edu 1-928-523-2167

Beetles in the Big City

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An article in the September issue of Ecological Applications asks: “Do birds and beetles show similar responses to urbanization?” The answer: No.

Birds are the go-to animals when it comes to studying the impacts of urbanization, but how well do birds represent other animal groups?

A paper in a 1999 issue of Ecological Applications found that the biodiversity of birds and butterflies correlate well across the urban gradient.

However, this paper, and others, say that beetles respond to different aspects of urbanization than birds do. A 2007 paper in the journal Landscape Ecology reported on a French study of birds, beetles and small mammals and concluded that urban woodlands were an important reservoir of species diversity. Another study conducted in Europe, Canada and Japan, and published in Global Ecology and Biogeography in 2009 found that urbanization itself didn’t have a big impact on ground beetle diversity, but that forest species were lost when the forest was lost.

This is all helpful to know if you are trying to conserve beetles, but also for understanding urban ecology.


Photo: Carabid beetle By Michael K. Oliver, Ph.D. (Photo taken by me) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Light Pollution Impacts

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A few weeks ago Scientific American had an excellent article that briefly described the wildlife impacts of light pollution — and it had footnotes. The focus is on cities, but the information applies everywhere.

If you need to get yourself up to speed on the ecological impacts of night lighting, or you need a resource to inform others (as long as they are scientifically literate), this is the place to start. Read the article here.

Photo: iStockphoto

Urban Bird Funds Awarded

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Urban Bird Treaty cities

The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced the ten cities that will be awarded up to $70,000 in a challenge grant for bird conservation projects. (That means the cities need to match the funds somehow.) In addition, cities previously selected for the program will receive an additional $10,000 grant.

This year’s cities range from the large (San Francisco; Washington, DC) to the small (Opelika, Ala. and Lewiston, Mont.).

Read the US Fish and Wildlife Service press release announcing the awards here. Or read more info about the Urban Bird Treaty from the USFWS Migratory Bird program, here. The next round of grants will be announced on Grants.gov.

Read the reaction of local media to the grants:
Ogden, Utah
Lewiston, Montana
Minneapolis, Minnesota

A general news article about the awards and program.

Map from US Fish and Wildlife Service

Urban Bird Funds Awarded

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Urban Bird Treaty cities

The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced the ten cities that will be awarded up to $70,000 in a challenge grant for bird conservation projects. (That means the cities need to match the funds somehow.) In addition, cities previously selected for the program will receive an additional $10,000 grant.

This year’s cities range from the large (San Francisco; Washington, DC) to the small (Opelika, Ala. and Lewiston, Mont.).

Read the US Fish and Wildlife Service press release announcing the awards here. Or read more info about the Urban Bird Treaty from the USFWS Migratory Bird program, here. The next round of grants will be announced on Grants.gov.

Read the reaction of local media to the grants:
Ogden, Utah
Lewiston, Montana
Minneapolis, Minnesota

A general news article about the awards and program.

Map from US Fish and Wildlife Service

Are they eating people food?

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Is a particular species eating human-provided food? A group of researchers studying the endangered San Joaquin kit fox found that analyzing the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the foxes’ fur painted a more accurate picture of the foxes’ diet than scat analysis alone. The team’s analysis is based on the idea that corn, a C4 grass, is the basic building block of modern, industrial food. Therefore, in areas of the country where C3 grasses predominate, looking for that skewed C13/N15 stable isotope signature can point towards a diet of modern, industrial people food.


The researchers found that the kit foxes living in an urban area in California had a C13/N15 signature almost identical to the people living in the area. And while they found the occasional scrap of food wrapper, because there are no bones or hair, the foxes’ people-food meals (which might have been garbage, or dog food left on the back porch), otherwise left little evidence in scat.

The researchers note that this technique has widespread uses. They also note that C4 grasses are native to some areas of the country, particularly in the South and West, and and would influence results there.


The paper, in The Journal of Mammalogy is open access.


Photo: B. “Moose” Peterson. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service