Money can't buy coyotes

1. The world is indeed going through it. Do what you can. Even if it’s small. But I also try to keep in mind that if you wait for activism to be perfect? You’ll stay home. We can’t be everything to everyone.

I feel a special sort of joy when a scientist who I have interviewed in the past (when it’s a really good interview, and most of them are) publishes something new. Often, I’ve heard a little bit about it, because research takes years, and like anyone passionate about their work, scientists can’t stop talking about the cool new thing they are doing. The best part? I’m always interviewing new scientists, and everyone I’ve interviewed generally keeps publishing new cool stuff, so I’ve always got little pings of happiness. Oh, look! So and so put out that paper on plague! Awesome! Oh look, that piece on foxes is finally out! So exciting!

Thus as I am especially pleased to see this a new paper out looking at coyotes in the LA area and finding….they don’t go quite where we think. Money, green space, wealthy neighborhoods? Turns out coyotes like a little more grit.

I interviewed both Chris Schell (an urban ecologist at UC Berkeley) and Niamh Quinn (a human-wildlife interactions advisor at UC Agriculture and Natural Resources) for my book (Quinn saved me a coyote for necropsy, and I have not yet recovered from the experience) and have spoken with them since, and I knew this paper was in the works. I am pleased to see it out, not just because it’s cool science, but because it highlights just how complex animal behavior around humans can be!

Coyotes live around people. Of course they do. Especially in southern California, where the weather is nice and the food is abundant. It’s paradise for many mammals, humans are not special. So humans and coyotes end up living near each other. But how are coyotes making their living in these areas? What do they prefer and why? Most studies have compared coyotes in urban, suburban, or rural environments. But there could be more at play. Whether an area is polluted, how wealthy it is (which could mean more green space), and what people broadly think of coyotes (whether they hate to see them, or accept them), can change whether a coyote chooses to spend time there. How to find out?

They put GPS collars on 20 coyotes in LA and San Bernadino Counties in 2019, and used them to track the movement of the animals for up to 23 months. They looked at the movements of the coyotes to establish not just the home ranges, but WHERE in those home ranges the animals spent their time.

They then looked at what was in those home ranges. How polluted were they? How much greenery was there? How many roads? How dense were the people living there and what was the median income? The scientists then compared the characteristics of the home ranges with the movement of the coyotes.

Some of the findings were surprising. Previous reports and studies have shown coyotes selecting for parks, green spaces, cemeteries. This might make you think, well they must like high income areas because those tend to be more green. But in this study, while the coyotes spent more time in greener spaces, they selected against golf courses, cemeteries…and wealth.

They also like railroads quite a bit, which I suspect might be because railways provide easy ways to move, and also because they often have green bits on either side of them, which are nice and brushy (that’s just me speculating). And they don’t spend time in highly polluted areas. I mean, who wants to do that?

But coyotes spending less time in wealthy areas at first seems odd. Wealthy areas have houses that are spaced further apart. They tend to have more natural spaces, either as part of people’s yards or in the form of parks. Why isn’t this coyote paradise?

Thanks for reading Team Trash: Where People and Wildlife Meet! This post is public so feel free to share it.

There could be a few reasons, the scientists note:

1. People living in wealthier neighborhoods are more intolerant of coyotes. This means…

2. Because residents can hire trappers for coyotes in southern California, wealthier neighborhoods are more likely to do that, because it costs money. While coyotes are like a gas and will expand to fill their container and re-move into the area, there will be gaps in time.

3. Low tolerance means wealthier people are more likely to haze coyotes (yell at them, etc). Hazing keeps coyotes away.

4. Wealthier neighborhoods are neater. They have fewer vacant lots, their trash pickup happens on time and neatly. In contrast, lower income neighborhoods have more trash. More rats. More coyote food.

In coverage of this, Quinn noted that often, more reports of coyotes come from wealthy neighborhoods than from less wealthy ones. But that doesn’t mean areas with no reports have no coyotes. It just means the people there aren’t reporting them, for whatever reason (not knowing they could or should, not wanting to do it, worrying about reporting anything to the government, too busy, loads of reasons). It’s relatively wealthy people who have the time, and the leisure, for coyotes to be something they do something about.

The study shows though that coyotes aren’t as simple as “see food, move in.” They are using their territories in different ways, they have preferences, and those preferences could include not only if the territory is good, but who lives there…and how those people think about coyotes as neighbors. So often, we tend to think of animals living near us as…almost machine-like in their simplicity. Trash? Means rats. Bird feeder? Means birds. Green space? Means coyotes.

But these are mental short cuts that we have made. They might be good guidelines, but they won’t always be true. In fact, the choices and behaviors of the animals we live with aren’t so simple. They are living in the complex world, just like we are. And they have complex reactions to it.

Reference and other coverage:

• Wilkinson, C.E., Quinn, N., Eng, C. and Schell, C.J. (2025), Environmental Health and Societal Wealth Predict Movement Patterns of an Urban Carnivore. Ecology Letters, 28: e70088. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70088

• Siedman, L. L.A. coyotes less likely to spend time in wealthy areas in their home range, study finds. L.A. Times, February 25, 2025.

Where have you been?

• Is it reading about how a massive dam project in the Czech Republic seemed waterlogged with details, until….8 beavers took it on? by the fab Jason Bittel.

• Maybe you’ve seen how little sea turtles do a little DANCE when they recognize their foraging grounds! By Jack Tamisiea.

• Or maybe it’s wonder why people are like this, why they seem to want to destroy things just for the sake of watching the world burn. If so, I highly recommend this piece by colleague and friend Sukata Gupta, about how some people react to a perceived loss in status with…burning it all down.

• Maybe it’s taking a mental break to look at this adorable little new tiny plant. A tiny plant, in the US, new to science. We’re discovering new species all the time and I love it.

• Maybe it’s reading my friend Riley Black’s LOVELY new book “When the Earth was Green” about how the animals we find so amazing in the past…would be NOTHING without the plants around them. I love how it weaves in the interconnectivity of ecosystems. Also, sabercats with the earliest catnip are a trip.

Where have I been?

• I’m on Freakonomics again this week! I really appreciate them having me on to talk about rats.

• Korea! I haven’t been to Korea (I have, but not recently. It’s a very cool place to visit, people were extremely nice). BUT they translated my book into Korean! I got the first copies last week and they are SO neat. (I had to ask someone where my name was on it because I cannot read a word).