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Re: [Dumb Dems feeding them...] San Francisco's coyotes are going after an unexpected source of prey, new study shows

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Leroy N. Soetoro wrote:
> https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-coyote-diet-study-
> 20025917.php
> 
> On a brisk Saturday morning in late September, Tali Caspi stood behind an
> information booth she had just set up on the sandy shoreline of Crissy
> Field near the East Beach parking lot. It was draped with a black
> tablecloth and accentuated by a single cardboard sign.
> 
> “My PhD is on SF coyotes,” it read. “Ask me anything!”
> 
> Caspi wasn’t sure what to expect. But she certainly didn’t think she’d
> spend the next three hours talking “nonstop” with over 100 San Franciscans
> who lined up to speak with her about the presence of the urban apex
> predators in their city and the purported risk they posed to their
> children and pets.
> 
> It had been just over a month since a spate of coyote attacks on dogs had
> been reported not far from where the growing crowd of locals had gathered.
> Earlier that summer, a coyote bit a 5-year-old girl who was attending day
> camp just a few miles away in Golden Gate Park.
> 
> Some of the residents were frightened. Many of them were angry. And all of
> them had questions. Was the coyote population skyrocketing? Were they
> developing a taste for their canine peers? And why didn’t the city
> relocate the carnivores — or get rid of them entirely?
> 
> “It was intense,” Caspi remembered during a recent conversation with
> SFGATE. “I think people are struggling to understand the ecology of what’s
> going on, and the individuality of these animals.”
> 
> For the past five years, the UC Davis PhD student has been working on a
> study exploring what the native California species is actually eating,
> published in the scientific journal Ecosphere on Tuesday. Throughout her
> research, she’s heard her fair share of misconceptions about the maligned
> canine, but for the first time, she has the data to debunk them.
> 
> What’s on the menu
> The study, completed between September 2019 and April 2022, utilizes 707
> pieces of scat left behind by over a hundred coyotes across the city.
> Armed with Google Maps and a fanny pack, Caspi spent countless mornings
> seeking out and collecting the crucial evidence for her research in
> manicured golf courses, busy neighborhoods and quiet cemeteries. Back at
> the lab, Caspi and her team at UC Davis’ Mammalian Ecology and
> Conservation unit ran the scat through a DNA metabarcoding process and
> were stunned by what they found.
> 
> The highest overall contributor to coyote diets in San Francisco was
> anthropogenic, or human-origin, food, which was identified in 78% of the
> samples collected. The data was most frequently traced back to coyotes
> dwelling in parts of the city with more manmade land cover, like asphalt
> and brick. Caspi cited three hotspots in particular — Coit Tower, St.
> Francis Wood and Bernal Hill — all of which have smaller ratios of green
> space to dense urban landscape.
> 
> “I don’t think people realize the sheer extent of human food that is
> consumed,” she said. “It surprised me.”
> 
> https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/46/47/63/26901705/8/ratio3x2_960.webp
> 
> A chart showing the diets of coyotes throughout San Francisco.
> 
> Tali Caspi/Figure 2a of "Impervious surface cover and number of
> restaurants shape diet variation in an urban carnivore"/Ecosphere
> The breakdown of human food consumed by coyotes included 509 detections of
> chicken and 250 detections of pig, followed by 32 detections of cattle and
> 15 detections of salmon and other fish. The findings come with the caveat
> that Caspi is unable to distinguish the original source of the food — if a
> sample of chicken is coming from a wayward McNugget tossed out of a car
> window, scraps left in an unsecured trash can, or a whole rotisserie feast
> intentionally left out for the wild animals, which she once witnessed
> firsthand.
> 
> “There’s no way to know for certain,” she said. “But it’s a novel
> behavior, and the reason why we’re focusing on it is because anthropogenic
> food consumption can presumably exacerbate conflict and have other
> physiological consequences for the animals.”
> 
> The second most commonly eaten food group in San Francisco’s coyotes was
> small mammals, which were found in 73.8% of the collected samples and
> include invasive pest species such as black rats, Norway rats and house
> mice,  Interestingly, Caspi was able to link higher rates of consumption
> of these pest species to territories with more restaurants, specifically
> the 1-kilometer areas surrounding Coit Tower and North Beach as well as
> Corona Heights and the bordering Castro, Haight and Mission District
> neighborhoods. She argued that it demonstrates the “enormous power” people
> have to manipulate their surroundings in ways that shape individual
> animals’ foraging behaviors. On one hand, businesses and residences in the
> area could be more diligent about how they dispose of waste, but on the
> other, they could look at the ecological service as a benefit.
> 
> “If people don’t want coyotes in certain areas, then we need to make sure
> that we don’t have attractants there for them to use,” she said. “Because
> they are using them. And they are using them massively.”

A whole rotisserie chicken to the caterpillar driver?  Why would we 
believe such generosity?  You're a good person you don't have to cry 
Wolf every time you want to be acknowledged.  Did you ever play A Barrel 
of Monkeys?  Monkeys hanging from the chandeliers?  The windows don't 
even open.  Why would I concern myself with a few coyote?  You also must 
forgive.

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[Dumb Dems feeding them...] San Francisco's coyotes are going after an unexpected source of prey, new study shows "Leroy N. Soetoro" <democrat-insurrection@mail.house.gov> - 2025-01-24 23:22 +0000
  Re: [Dumb Dems feeding them...] San Francisco's coyotes are going after an unexpected source of prey, new study shows Siri Cruise <chine.bleu@www.yahoo.com> - 2025-01-24 17:44 -0800
  Re: [Dumb Dems feeding them...] San Francisco's coyotes are going after an unexpected source of prey, new study shows Siri Cruise <chine.bleu@www.yahoo.com> - 2025-01-24 20:46 -0800
  Re: [Dumb Dems feeding them...] San Francisco's coyotes are going after an unexpected source of prey, new study shows Tahitian pearl <j63480576@gmail.com> - 2025-01-24 23:16 -0600

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