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Urban Coyote Safety and Awareness Program

PROJECT Project Title: Urban Coyote Safety and Awareness Program
NominationDate: 1/25/2012 8:37 AM
Local Government: City of Aurora
Cooperating Government: USDA APHIS (Predator Research Center), CSU (Human Dimensions and Natural Resources Dept.), Adams Cou
Summary:
In the spirit of Metro Vision, this program works toward a regional, coordinated, collaborative, flexible and integrated tool kit for addressing negative human/coyote interactions because, much like many of the issues Metro Vision addresses, coyotes don’t recognize jurisdictional boundaries. Through targeted, proactive and responsive education and outreach, urban coyote conflict can be reduced and/or avoided in most cases. This project blends researcher expertise with front-line practitioners to collect and analyze conflict data, inventory current management and educational tools, assess human attitudes and beliefs about coyotes and coyote conflict, involve and educate citizens through a citizen science Coyote Watch program, and study coyote ecology through remote camera analysis and radio collar studies. Over the past five years, Aurora has provided education and outreach on this program for peers and professionals at the regional and national level through three Colorado Open Space Alliance (COSA) presentations, one Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE) presentation and one presentation for the National Urban Wildlife Planning and Management conference. On a community level, Aurora has collected over 300 reports and made over 8000 educational contacts through outreach programs and events.
Problem:
Coyotes are flexible and opportunistic habitat generalists. Coyotes benefit from the presence of humans through natural predator reduction (specifically the removal of wolves) and habitat enhancements such as linked parks and open space systems connected to lush landscaping and artificially high populations of prey species such as cottontails, squirrels and mice. For these reasons, coyotes will always be a part of the urban ecosystem. While coyotes benefit from the presence of humans, their default behavior is to avoid them. Human behaviors such as ignoring, intentional feeding and unintentional feeding can bring local coyotes to a state of tolerance and/or habituation where conflict behavior toward pets and humans begins affect the quality of life for citizens experiencing the conflict. Coyote conflict has emotional, economic, political and scientific impacts. Like many cities in the Denver Metro Area, Aurora’s urban coyote management program emphasizes community education and outreach over lethal control of coyotes. Conflict can largely be reduced or avoided through coyote safety and awareness education and outreach. It is essential that educational tools be research-based, flexible, targeted, developed and shared collaboratively with researchers and practitioners. Actionable data from this project has already drilled deeper into human dimensions to reveal real barriers to hazing (aversive conditioning), willingness to supervise pets appropriately, report intentional feeding and understanding state and local laws related to coyote management. Access to this level of detailed information related to conflict gets at the root of the problem allowing for more informed and targeted educational messages for success.
Description:
Applying the four main Metro Vision goals, this project aims to protect and enhance quality of life through a regional and collaborative effort to provide research-based and long-range direction for reducing human/coyote conflict in urban areas. The project accomplishes this by collecting and analyzing conflict data from 22 Denver Metro Area entities, creating, applying and analyzing a human dimensions and coyotes survey, launching a citizen science Coyote Watch program, implementing a remote camera study and applying the research to improved education and outreach materials. Since 2008, Aurora staff has made over 8000 personal education and outreach contacts on coyote safety and awareness in Aurora and throughout the Denver Metro Area. Educational contacts are made through school programs, HOA meetings, Neighborhood Watch meetings, City Council Ward meetings, Rotary, Optimists, Civitan and other civic organization meetings, large public events, Scout programming and a two-year REI lecture series at all Front Range stores. Since January 1, 2012, Aurora naturalists have already made 512 coyote safety and awareness educational contacts including a safety presentation for an entire elementary school, an HOA meeting, a Cit Council Ward Meeting, and a talk for the Northern Colorado Horsemen’s Association.
Modification Details:
This project expands on two other urban coyote management efforts. Initiated in 2000, The Cook County Coyote Ecology and Management Project (www.urbancoyoteresearch.com) is a comprehensive and ongoing ecological study of coyotes in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Using radio-collared coyotes, the study collects information on urban coyote ecology (home range, territory, preferred habitats, scat analysis) to address shortcomings in urban coyote ecology and management. This study does not specifically address human dimensions or education and outreach components of urban coyote management. At the local level, in 2008 the City of Centennial initiated a collaborative effort toward discussion of coyote conflict and crafting coyote management plans among south Denver metro area jurisdictions. While this effort provided direction and tools toward coyote management, it lacked oversight from researchers and actionable data inputs. The Urban Coyote Safety and Awareness Program begins with the collection and analysis of real conflict data, strives to create uniform definitions for conflict and to collect human dimensions data, which will inform and improve education and outreach efforts to reduce conflict in the long term. This program also engages the community through conflict reporting, the citizen science Coyote Watch program and continuous community education and outreach.

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