Relationships With Other Animals

Unfortunately, most of the information the public receives about urban coyotes comes from newspapers or other media that usually focus on conflicts such as pet attacks. However, other aspects of the ecological roles coyotes play in urban areas are poorly understood. Nevertheless, predators, including coyotes, serve important ecological functions, even in metropolitan areas. Here are a few examples of the impacts coyotes have in the Chicago metropolitan area, impacts that some individuals view as beneficial.

Rodents

Rodents make up the bulk of the coyote diet in both urban areas and rural areas. See more here.  Although it has yet to be measured in urban systems, experiments in rural areas have shown that the removal of coyotes results in a dramatic increase in rodent abundance and a decrease in rodent diversity (this means that only a few species increase and exclude other rodent species). We have observed rodent increases in areas such as golf courses following coyote removal programs. There is also the possibility that coyotes help to control woodchucks. Many areas, such as cemeteries and golf courses, have reported declines in woodchuck abundance once coyotes appeared.

White-Tailed Deer

Deer are often overabundant and difficult to manage in urban areas. Although
coyotes rarely take adult deer, they are primary predators of deer fawns. Colleagues from the Illinois Natural History Survey conducted a fawn survival study in different locations within the Chicago area and found that coyotes killed 20 percent to 80 percent of the fawns in different populations. Coyotes cannot reduce deer populations because they do not often take adult deer (in the Midwest), but they may slow population growth in high-density areas through their predation on fawns.

Canada Geese

Geese have adapted to urban landscapes much like deer and at times become overabundant and a nuisance. Geese can also be a challenge to manage in urban areas. A study of geese in the Chicago area found that the population was growing much less rapidly than predicted, and that population growth was limited by nest predation. By placing modified video cameras at the nests, we were able to identify coyotes as the major predator on the nests. Thus, coyotes are serving as a biocontrol for urban geese. Because egg contents are not detected in coyote scat, the extent of coyote predation on goose nests could only be determined by placing cameras at nests. As with deer, coyotes do not take enough adult geese to reduce the population, but they can slow the population increase through egg predation.

Domestic Cat

This is perhaps one of the most controversial aspects to the urbanization of coyotes and often pits sections of the public against each other. Coyotes kill cats for food or to remove potential competitors. Those members of the public who own cats or are otherwise interested in their well-being view this function of coyotes as strongly negative. However, a positive consequence of coyotes removing peri-domestic or feral cats is the trickle-down effect. Studies in California urban areas showed that coyotes reduced cats in some habitat fragments, which then resulted in an increase in nesting success for songbirds. Thus, the coyote serves as a top predator by removing an important smaller predator, the cat, with birds and perhaps other species subsequently increasing in number. More research is needed to determine if these trickle-down effects also occur in other metropolitan areas.