Los Angeles Coyotes Avoid Wealthier Neighborhoods, Study Finds

A new study of the movement patterns of the urban coyotes seen prowling through the Los Angeles area reveals they avoid wealthier neighborhoods, and researchers say they’ve likely learned that residents there won’t tolerate them.

The new study, published in Ecology Letters last week, was led by UC Berkeley alum Christine Wilkinson, now a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, with co-author Niamh Quinn, the human-wildlife interactions advisor for the University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources South Coast Research and Extension Center.

“Urban areas are actually petri dishes where many social-ecological components come together in an acute way,” said Wilkinson, a recent postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Assistant Professor Christopher Schell, a senior author on the study. “Despite that, theyve been grayed out on many conservation maps even though we know that they are home to important wildlife habitat.”

Researchers have long primarily relied on information about regional landscapes and linear infrastructure such as roads and rail lines to predict wildlife movement, but the new study shows an areas wealth, pollution, human population density, and other societal data points result in more accurate predictions for where and how far a coyote may roam.

“Ive heard a lot from people on the ground that its never been like this,” Quinn said. “Seeing a coyote in an urban environment was very rare 15 to 20 years ago, whereas seeing one now is very common.”

To determine where the coyotes in the region are moving, Wilkinson and Quinn looked at 20 coyotes that were trapped and collared by the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioners office. The collars reported the animals’ locations at intervals ranging from 15 minutes to two hours.

“There’s only one true thing about a coyote, and that is that they will make a fool of you,” Quinn said. “You really have to know the coyote before you put the trap down, and because youre trapping in urban areas a lot of the time, we have to be careful that we dont catch anything else.”

“Our current study offers evidence of how coyotes and other wildlife are navigating cities by making far more complicated and integrated decisions based on the entire tapestry of urban conditions surrounding them,” Schell said.

The authors found that coyotes in more “anthropogenically burdened” areas, characterized by higher pollution and development intensity, showed different movement patterns than coyotes in less burdened areas. The coyotes in burdened areas had larger home ranges, longer step lengths, and higher measures of exploration.

“They might need to go further to navigate scattered resources and respond to disturbances, which might also result in higher energetic costs,” said Wilkinson. “Taken together, its safe to say that urban complexity and human disturbances can significantly shape coyote behavior.”

The authors also found that neighborhood wealth was a surprising predictor of coyote behavior — the animals tend to avoid wealthier neighborhoods. The finding was a surprise because wealthier areas tend to enjoy the “luxury effect,” with higher biodiversity due to higher-quality habitat and more abundant natural resources.

“Wealthier areas tend to have a more separationist and negative view toward coyotes,” said Wilkinson. “There are a lot of people that take out permits to remove coyotes, which doesnt happen in lower-income areas as it’s very expensive to hire a trapper.”

Researchers were also surprised to find that roads, railways, and flood channels don’t act as barriers for coyotes, but as movement channels they travel along.

“Looking forward, as our human footprint continues to expand globally, the ultimate success of wildlife will rest in our ability to establish healthy, equitable, and functioning cities,” Schell said.

“People are exposed to the very same pollutants and burdens that these coyotes are exposed to,” she said. “Understanding those linkages between our wellbeing can really give us paths to consider when making big decisions for urban design and redesign.”