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Coyote family activity in a landscape of fear

Robert W. Mitchell,Shelley Alexander

Published 2025 in Scientific Reports

ABSTRACT

Coyote (Canis latrans) presence in many North American cities evokes fear in some humans, driving demands for management action. With societal values shifting towards non-lethal coexistence practices, many wildlife managers turn to strategies like aversion conditioning, designed to increase coyotes’ fear of humans. Yet, scant knowledge exists about baseline fear behaviors (e.g., vigilance, alertness) in urban coyotes. This has implications for coexistence practices, as the motivation for coyotes’ behavior should underscore how managers respond. To explore urbanization effects on fear and behavior, we used remote cameras to monitor three coyote families during the pup-rearing season in urban, peri-urban, and rural sites in/near Calgary, Canada (2021–2022). We coded behaviors observed in adults and pups using 62 822 images. Rural adult coyotes were observed more around pups, while urban and peri-urban coyotes were observed more around pups that were playing, spent more time den-guarding, and showed higher alertness. This adaptive response in urban and peri-urban coyotes may force some coyotes into a behavioral trade-off (e.g., guarding pups vs. foraging), which could translate into more risky behaviors (e.g., consuming garbage). The elevated baseline fear in coyotes facing urban pressures suggests that coexistence practitioners must consider the risks of increasing fear during aversion conditioning.

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