Coyotes---Both Urban and Rural---Featured at OSU Extension - Greene County Seminar With OSU Specialist

The increasing urbanization of coyotes will be the focus of a free seminar offered to park officials, city and county leaders, as well as the general public from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., Tuesday, July 14, at the OSU Extension-Greene County Buckeye Room, 100 Fairground Rd., Xenia.

Featured speaker will be nationally-known researcher Stanley Gehrt, the author of The Cook County, Illinois, Coyote Project. Gehrt  is an Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University and a Senior Scientist at the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation near Chicago, Illinois.
   
His multi-year research project has been sponsored by the Cook County Department of Animal Control.

Gehrt and his colleagues have discovered that urban coyote populations are much larger than expected, live longer than their rural counterparts and are more active at nighttime that coyotes living in rural area.  And although a surprising discovery for some residents, coyotes help control rapidly growing populations of Canada geese and many rodents in urban neighborhoods.

He estimates approximately 2,000 coyotes live within Chicago as well as within other cities such as St. Louis, Pheonix and Washington D.C. A pack of about 12 coyotes has even been seen on the OSU campus in Columbus.

Coyotes thrive in urban areas for several reasons, he adds. Secrecy, nocturnal habits and ability to adapt to a changing food supply allow the coyote to thrive in metropolitan or suburban areas.

Gehrt says many people assume coyotes eat garbage or pets and nothing else.  Their diet, however, has been shown to be 99 percent fruit, mice, rats, rabbits, goose eggs and deer as they prefer to catch their own prey.

Coyotes offer an ecological benefit even in the urban environment by controlling nuisance species, such as rats and mice.

For more information about the free urban coyote seminar,  call OSU Extension-Greene County at (3937) 372-9971, email mills.35@ag.osu.edu  or log on www. greene.osu.edu.