On 1/11/2017 8:54 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 17:57:11 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jan 2017 12:38:09 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Last week on the PBS program Nova, those animals were part of the
hour-long show. Seems in the east, at least, they originated in
Algonquin National Park, which had an isolated wolf population. When
coyotes recently extended their range into the area, the coyotes and
wolves mated, and they continue to do so.

I saw that, too- quite interesting as I knew little about the urban
coyote phenomenon. My Mom lived in a suburb of Chicago and reported to
me that coyotes had been seen in town. I was skeptical but apparently
it's a thing.

Here in the Twin Cities some have been spotted, but the prairies are not
too far away to the west and south, and the Mississippi River corridor
makes for pretty convenient migration of non-flying animals into and
through the metro area. I live a more or less literal stone's throw
from an interstate smack in the middle of the Twin Cities and there was
a large grey fox living within a block of our house. Deer have been
seen in backyards here. The Mississippi River gorge is less than a mile
away which probably accounts for this. And of course we have the usual
complement of rabbits, squirrels, racoons, oppossums and a few times a
year we see red-tail hawks and an eagle or two in our immediate
neighborhood.

And the spread of coyotes has been remarkable. They now take young deer
in our forest preserve - a good thing, overall, I think. And with luck,
they may convince people to keep their dogs on leash.

Peoples is everywhere and animals are adapting to our encroachment into
their ranges with urban expansion by figuring out how to live in urban
areas themselves. In what, 40 years or so the Earth's population has
nearly doubled and will do so again in even less time (barring famine,
pestilence or an outbreak of rationality).

I've read that the white tailed deer population in New Hampshire
actually increased, during the 1800's and early 1900's, in northern
parts of the state, with an increase in the human population due to
the killing of wolves and the clearing of forest land which provided
the deer with a greater food supply due to an increase in grazing
areas.

I'm sure though that the population decreased with the paving over hay
fields to make parking lots :-)

I doubt it. Whitetail deer seem to have adapted extremely well to
suburbia. They may not like parking lots, but they love the "edge
habitat" that abounds when people move into former woods or farmland and
plant grass, tasty shrubs, etc. Their population has soared in recent
years.

Look at the plot of whitetail population:
http://www.deerfriendly.com/_/rsrc/1...=318&width=400

Our neighborhood is admittedly atypical in that we've got acres of woods
within an area surrounded by highways, freeways, plazas and parking
lots. But I've seen deer running down our residential street many
times. Yesterday I added two new protective nets over the shrubs we
planted in the fall, in addition to all the other winter fencing we put
up a few weeks ago. The deer decided these new shrubs are tasty, and
they're not dissuaded by the fact that the shrubs are just three feet
from the main entrance to our house.


--
- Frank Krygowski