Why Wild Animals Are Moving Into Cities, And What To Do About It
Wild Among Us Everett CollectionGlobal warming and environmental destruction are driving coyotes, bears and mountain lions out of their habitats, but that's only part of the reason why so many animals call the city home. It's been a while since he tried to count them all, but Stan Gehrt estimates that more than 2,000 coyotes make a comfortable living in the Chicago metropolitan area today. And in the 12 years he's spent tracking the animals with radio and GPS collars, Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State University, has witnessed some remarkable adaptations. Suburban coyotes, like the pack in a residential area a few miles from O'Hare airport, have learned to live in much smaller territories than they do in rural places. Downtown coyotes, which roam among the towers and traffic of the Chicago Loop, thrive in the city by hunting enough small rodents to feed themselves and their...