Large predators push coyotes and bobcats near people and to their demise
When wild animals take refuge from predators by straying near people, the illusion of safety can be deadly. In the wilderness, mid-sized predators like coyotes have learned to fear larger carnivores like wolves and cougars, which will violently attack and kill those smaller carnivores. A new study finds that when those larger predators are around, the smaller ones will try to evade attack by moving into spaces shaped by people. But that ends up putting them at a much higher risk of getting killed — by people, scientists report in the May 19 Science. The study is among the first to show that large cats and wolves shape the behavior of other predators outside of wilderness areas, says Laura Prugh, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. When large carnivore populations plummeted from being hunted in vast stretches of North America, predators less threatening to humans flourished. Then, as large...