Tucson Region

Urban coyotes focus of study

Coyotes, those hardy, cunning symbols of the rural West, will be captured and radio-collared for a detailed study centered in two of Tucson's most urban neighborhoods. The reason? The Colonia Solana and El Encanto neighborhoods bordering El Con Mall have become coyote hot spots. Year in and year out, residents of those areas have told local and state wildlife biologists tales of coyotes that set up dens in their bushes, of coyotes that attack their dogs and cats and of coyotes that have slowly lost their fear of humans. Early next month, Arizona Game and Fish Department and University of Arizona researchers will trap 10 coyotes in people's yards and fit them with tracking collars, then follow them to see where they go and how they behave when left to their own devices. They'll also put traps in the Arroyo Chico, a major wash slicing through that area, where thick stands of trees and brush have attracted coyotes. Earlier this year, Colonia Solana resident Holly Gardner reported to the state that coyotes that used to turn away whenever they saw her have started following her. On one occasion this month, six coyotes ran after Gardner, who has lived in the neighborhood for five years, and her dog to their home, she said. "They followed me to the arroyo. They all stood and looked at me, I yelled at them, turned away, pulled the dog away and we started walking home," Gardner said last week. "They started walking after me and I kept looking over my shoulder. They started to jog after me and I ran into my driveway. They followed into my yard, then they lost interest and left." But Gardner, who said she now sees coyotes at least every other day, said she isn't bothered by the coyotes and generally finds them quite entertaining. She's bought an air horn so she can try to ward them off in future encounters. The study comes as a handful of Tucson-area residents, and far more in the more populous Phoenix and Los Angeles areas, have reported being bitten by coyotes in recent years. Authorities say those bites often stem from human behavior - people move into their habitat, feed them, leave pet food outside or treat them too respectfully rather than trying to scare them off. Later in the course of the study, researchers will trap another batch of coyotes in those neighborhoods and move them into the wild to see how their behavior changes when they are removed from an urban area. The study will last two years. Researchers hope new satellite-based tracking technology will provide information that can help manage the animals and avoid conflicts that could require euthanizing the animals, said Elissa Ostergaard, Game and Fish's urban-wildlife biologist in Tucson. For the past three years, the department has received one to four complaints monthly about coyotes, with about one complaint every two months about a coyote attacking a pet, Ostergaard said. Coyotes have taken pets in the Colonia Solana neighborhood several times in past years, but that hasn't happened as much recently because people are on guard, said Bill Dupont, president of the Colonia Solana Neighborhood Association. "They've taken pets out of yards that are not fenced in correctly. They get into yards and take dogs or cats. Other times, they take dogs and cats when the master is not there watching it." But now, residents set up yards with inner fences or with higher-than-normal fences and make sure their dogs are on leashes, he said. Often, Game and Fish is stuck on the horns of a dilemma, said Jim DeVos, the department's research chief: "Part of the public says we want them the heck out of here, and part of them says this is the coolest thing since sliced bread that they are here." The study will test scientists' hypothesis that moving coyotes from the city to the wild when they're acting aggressively will ultimately lead to the animals' deaths, said a UA researcher. "If we have a problem animal, my personal belief is that it is better to go ahead and euthanize them," said Paul Krausman, a UA natural resources and wildlife ecology professor who is helping run the study. "That's because if you take an animal and put it into another area, it will be stressed, more vulnerable, not accepted and probably won't live anyway. You will also be stressing other animals."