Connecting With Animals: Anthropomorphizing

25 Feb 2018 Comments Off on Connecting With Animals: Anthropomorphizing

by yipps:janetkessler in anthropomophizing Tags:

via Connecting With Animals: Anthropomorphizing

 

Coyote Speaks Her Mind, An Update

20 Feb 2018 6 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in coexisting with coyotes, communication, competition for resources, coyote "messaging" behavior, coyote barking, coyote howling, coyote reactions to dogs, coyotes defending themselves, dog reactions to coyotes, feelings & emotions, following, harassment by other animals, hiding, understanding messaging

I want to update the continuing story of the loner coyote I wrote about in: Coyote Speaks Her Mind to the Dog Who Chased Her Three Weeks Ago! The story through that posting evolved from a dog who repeatedly chased the coyote, to the coyote finally vocalizing her distress at being chased while remaining hidden in the bushes.

Soon thereafter, this coyote would follow that dog, which is now kept leashed, screaming out her anguish, now in plain view — no longer hidden in the bushes. For months this behavior continued, daily, and then the vocalizations stopped, but the following behavior still continued, always at a safe and great distance. 

One might ask, “Why would a little coyote follow a dog — even a large 100 pound dog — if she were fearful of the dog?  The answer appears to be that ‘following’ is used by coyotes both to escort out and to assure themselves that a threatening (or perceived as threatening) animal is leaving an area. It is a territorial behavior. Coyotes’ survival depends on their territoriality: they claim, and exclude other coyotes, from the land which will supply them with, and ensure them a supply of,  food and protection from competitors. The screaming, which incorporates deep raspy sounds, is a brave warning, more bluff than anything else, but also a release of the coyote’s distressed feelings. The coyote appears totally aware that the dog is tethered: she has fled like a bullet when the dog got loose and turned towards her.

The little coyote’s behavior towards that dog is continuing to evolve. Yesterday, after seeing the dog in the far distance, she simply ran the other way and disappeared from view over the crest of the hill before the dog had a chance to see her!

A few days ago, having seen the dog from a great distance, she ran off and hid rather than take a chance at being seen.

Crouching low the minute she saw the dog, in hopes of not being seen

And today, the little coyote didn’t notice the dog — the dog is walked daily in the park — until the dog already was close by. Her evasive strategy this time involved crouching down into the grasses and ducking so as not to be seen. She was not seen by the dog, but she was seen by the owner.  She remained in her crouched-down spot as the dog didn’t seem to notice her (the dog was leashed and couldn’t have moved towards the coyote even if she had wanted to). 

The coyote got up and watched them walk away and disappear over the horizon and then took after them, but remaining out of sight.  She spotted them at the crest of a hill where she sat and kept an eye on them from the distance until they left. This owner is doing as much as he can to avoid conflict by walking his dog on the leash and always walking away from the coyote. Fortunately, he is fascinated and amused by her behavior!

By the way, I have seen this same behavior in a number of females, and one male coyote — it’s not so unusual, so folks with dogs should be aware of it so they don’t freak out if it happens towards their dog. What to do? Simply shorten your leash and keep walking away from the coyote. Also, try to minimize visual communication between your dog and a coyote — the communication is most likely to be negative, so why even go there? Again, simply shorten your leash and walk on and away.

Fraternizing with the Raccoons?

14 Feb 2018 4 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in coexisting with coyotes, raccoons and coyotes

A dog walker approached me in the dark, before dawn, to ask me about a strange sound he heard: hissing and a breathy growling. He told me he decided not to enter the park with his two small dogs because he wasn’t sure of the sound; he asked if it might have been a coyote. I told him that it could have been a coyote, however, the local neighborhood coyote is not one who reacts to dogs and walkers this way: she’s an accepting gal who keeps away from dogs unless she has been chased, and even then she comes back only to make sure the dog has gone away.

many sets of eyes in the dark – there were actually 5 sets

I finally approached the area where the sound was heard, and I heard it: a loud, raspy, breathy growl that came across as an intense explicative.  I shined my flashlight on the spot, only to find five set of eyes huddled together. Yikes!  Then I saw with my flashlight that one set of eyes belonged to a coyote. No one was moving — they were just sitting still, all five of them together, eyeing my flashlight. I gasped, knowing that this coyote, a loner, didn’t have a family — so I wondered if she had invited another family of coyotes into her area. It was something I had never witnessed.

One set of eyes belonged to a coyote

Ahhh! Soon I was able to see that each set of eyes belonged to a masked and stripe-tailed raccoon! It was a mother and three youngsters, in addition to the one coyote. The youngsters kept to the bushes. Mom and coyote appeared to know each other. They  walked around, inches from each other, totally ignoring one another. There was no aggression between them: probably a truce had been achieved long ago. The coyote wasn’t going to mess with Mom Raccoon and Mom Raccoon wasn’t going to mess with the coyote.

However, the coyote was pawing at the bushes where the youngsters (almost full-sized) were hanging out, provoking and testing what their responses might be, hoping for some kind of reaction.  Mom every now and then discharged a raspy, growly exhalation in warning. BTW coyotes make this same warning sound towards each other, but not as loudly. The coyote backed up a little but did not leave. This state of affairs continued, unchanging, for about half-an-hour. Finally, the coyote went off into the distance, where she sat down and waited patiently for something to happen: treed raccoons were not much fun!

Dawn now was slowly creeping in and more people were arriving at the park. Maybe the coyote knew the raccoons would make a run for it at some point? With her gone, the raccoons indeed soon edged their way through the bushes down to the street and then ran across — three and then the fourth — with the coyote now at their heels once they were out in the open, running with them.

Raccoons are tough customers for coyotes, and although I have seen coyotes eat raccoon, most encounters I’ve seen end up in a standoff. It’s the juveniles and enfeebled raccoons who are most vulnerable to coyote predation, as well as those who might find themselves unexpectedly separated from their families when confronted by several coyotes. This particular coyote seemed more into entertainment, and maybe even company, than anything else — fraternizing?! I’m sure this coyote could have grabbed one of the youngsters had she wanted to, but she seemed more interested in simply testing their mettle. When they got to the other side of the street, the raccoons scrambled up a tree, and the coyote was left down below, all alone. NOTE that this indeed is an unusual coyote: she flees from cats at the slightest provocation and has even tried gingerly interacting with them — or maybe she was testing their responses.

UC Davis’ DNA Study of Coyotes in San Francisco

08 Feb 2018 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in Coyote DNA in San Francisco, UC Davis

click on image to enlarge

Back in 2007, shortly after I began my own dedicated urban coyote investigations and studies, I became interested in the possibility of using DNA from scat to find out more about our urban coyotes. In researching lab possibilities, I came across Ben Sacks at UC Davis and then Erin Boydston who would soon be working for the USGS. Erin confirmed for me that Ben was involved in such a study. It was Erin Boydston, who had been hired by the Presidio to document the wildlife in that park, who delivered the first sample of DNA (this was a blood sample) to Ben’s lab for analysis where it was determined that the coyotes were from Mendocino County. My timing was perfect, as Ben Sacks asked me to collect scat from San Francisco for his DNA study here. I contributed to the study as the *citizen-scientist* and a naturalist with a special interest in coyotes.

This poster above, with a summary of the project, has just finished being assembled by Camilo Sanchez who has been a part of the project at UC Davis. I’ve been given permission by Ben to post it here.

My own study of coyotes here in San Francisco — investigating and documenting urban coyote behavior including their behavior in relation to people and pets and getting this out to the public, documenting different levels of habituation and its effect on their behavior, and documenting different population pockets, densities, and territoriality in the city — something no one else has been doing — has been ongoing since 2007, hey, making it the longest running such study in the city! I’ve asked Ben if he might be able to do more analysis (I’ve already collected and vialed specimens from throughout the city) — specifically to determine what proportion of our coyotes are the progeny of those originally from Mendocino County, and how many might be immigrants from the South. Because of the structure of funding at universities, Ben told me that he can only continue this study if we find funding for a graduate student. Hopefully this will happen — and the study will be an ongoing one, continuing what was begun in 2006.

When I first started, it was Stan Gehrt — from Ohio State, who runs the longest running coyote study in the country — who spurred me on by encouragingly corresponding with me during my initial documentation work, answering my questions about what I had observed, sharing his incredible territorial diagrams (before they were published on his site), giving me citations, and then connecting me with a graduate student, who came all the way to San Francisco to decide upon and carry out a dissertation project. Interests change, and she decided to move on into journalism and videography. As a journalism intern, and with her background knowledge and interest in coyotes, she interviewed me for a Bay Nature Connections profile where she called me “a pioneer in the photo-documentation of the lives of urban coyotes, capturing their intimate lives”, a phrase I like and repeat when describing what I do!

PHOTO: Summersaulting!

02 Feb 2018 3 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, playing

There’s lots of joy in watching a carefree urban coyote having lots of fun! This one found a ball to play with which had been left by a dog. Among her antics with the ball were jumps, sprints, tossing the ball up in the air and catching it, and repeated roly-poly tumbles and summersaults!