Page 28 - aruba-today-20171118

A28 SCIENCE
Saturday 18 November 2017

Getting more ‘wolflike’ is the key to the future for coyotes

By PATRICK WHITTLE in number. nationwide has actually
Associated Press Current numbers of Eastern tracked downward. Coy-
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — coyotes are hard to come otes were responsible for
The future of the coyotes by, state wildlife officials nearly 59 percent of preda-
that roam forests, cities and said. Kays has estimated tor kills of sheep in 1994 and
suburbs from Newfound- there are likely more than a about 54 percent in 2014,
land to Virginia could hinge million. the agency reported.
on the animals becoming Reports about coyotes liv- “If we leave them alone,
the “wolves” of the East ing in populated areas they will self-regulate,” Fox
Coast. And humans better have accelerated in the said.
get used to them. past 10 years. Some towns The Eastern coyotes will
Coyotes have lived in the in Massachusetts and Con- have a greater chance of
East since the 1930s, and necticut have called meet- survival if they have access
recent genetic tests have ings to discuss safety con- to large deer, said scien-
shown they are actually a cerns and more lethal trap- tists. Abundant food, such
mixture of coyote, wolf and In this 2008 photo provided by Josh Harrison, a coyote stands ping methods. as the Eastern whitetails, will
dog. That’s why Eastern in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass. Suburbanites from New give their offspring a better
coyotes tend to be bigger Associated Press Hampshire to Maryland chance of survival, leading
than their Western cousins. predators, scientists said. They no longer overlap have complained that they to healthy new generations
And they might be get- And the genetic changes with wolves, which are long snatch outdoor pet cats. of large, wolflike coyotes,
ting increasingly similar to bode well for their ability gone from the East save Police in Lynn, Massachu- Kays said.
wolves. The hybrid carni- to keep thriving in highly for the very rare red wolf, setts, advised pet owners “Are they going to get a
vore has expanded its ter- populated areas, including but they remain eight to 25 to avoid leaving pet food little bigger? Maybe,” he
ritory and thrived over the New York City and Cape percent wolf genetically, or small pets outside on said.
past eight decades, and Cod, Massachusetts, as said Roland Kays, a leading Wednesday after a coyote The wolflike appearance of
increasingly wolflike traits well as the deer-rich woods coyote biologist with the was spotted in the Boston- Eastern coyotes has moti-
are making it a larger, of Maine and upstate New North Carolina Museum of area city of 90,000. And vated some people to dub
more adaptable animal York. Natural Sciences. Manhattan dwellers have them “coywolves.” Eastern
equipped for survival on And it could ultimately They are also about eight to even reported seeing them Coyote/Coywolf Research
the East Coast, scientists mean the coyotes start to 11 percent dog due to past in Central Park. of Cape Cod, Massachu-
say. The growing wolflike play the role of top preda- interbreeding with feral But fears that the animals setts, wants them recog-
characteristics mean hu- tor on the East Coast — one dogs, he said. The Eastern could become a bigger nized as a separate spe-
mans must learn to better played by wolves long ago coyote remains capable threat, especially to peo- cies.
coexist with the adaptable and no longer occupied by of having pups with dogs, ple, are largely unfounded, But Gerry Lavigne, a re-
predators, scientists and a single, dominant species. but it’s not common in part said Camilla Fox, execu- tired state wildlife biologist
wildlife advocates said. The Eastern coyote is one because their breeding cy- tive director of California- in Maine, says Eastern coy-
“We now have a novel, of 19 subspecies of coyote, cles don’t neatly overlap. based Project Coyote. The otes are not genetically dis-
large canid to take over which are adaptable pred- Hybridization with wolves animals are generally timid tinct enough to constitute
that new role,” said Robert ators that live everywhere gave Eastern coyotes their around humans. their own species, although
Crabtree, chief scientist of from the streets of Los An- size and weight, with East- There has been only one they have wolf genes and
the Yellowstone Ecological geles to Florida swamps. ern coyotes averaging documented fatal Eastern are very adaptable. And
Research Center. “The right The Eastern subspecies, about 35 pounds and the coyote attack. Canadian Kays, the North Carolina
size is going to be selected which ranges as far west Western subspecies aver- singer Taylor Mitchell, 19, coyote researcher, said so-
for us by biological evolu- as Ohio, is thought to have aging about 25 pounds. was mauled by coyotes in called coywolves are “not
tion itself.” migrated to the Northeast Scientists see evidence that Nova Scotia in 2009. a thing.”
It’s especially bad news for some 80 years ago, taking the wolf DNA is increasingly The U.S. Department of Ag- Numerous states issue ex-
deer. In becoming more over the range occupied helping the Eastern coy- riculture has also reported termination permits for
wolflike, the coyotes might by wolves and interbreed- otes survive, Kays said. And that the percent of sheep coyotes or allow hunting of
become more effective ing with the larger animals. they might also be growing and lambs killed by coyotes them.q