Coyotes Take Manhattan: Animals Spotted Across New York City

weather.com/The Associated Press
Published: April 24,2015



 

In this photo taken the morning of April 22, 2015, and released by the 24th Precinct of the New York City Police Dept., on Thursday April 23, 2015, a coyote walks in New York City's Riverside Park, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A string of sightings and captures in Manhattan and other unexpected locales in recent months has drawn new attention to the animals. (New York City Police Dept. via AP)

The Concrete Jungle has a coyote problem.
From the Hudson River Park to the East Village to a neighborhood in Queens, New York City has been plagued with a string of coyote sightings in recent months. (Although, the animals have been periodically spotted since the '80s, The Associated Press reports.)
At least four coyotes have been spotted around Manhattan so far this year, and one was seen clambering around on the roof of a Queens bar before disappearing, says Sarah Aucoin, the director of the city's Urban Park Rangers program. Three of the animals were captured in Manhattan and released in Bronx parks with established coyote populations, she said.
Police chased after the fourth on Wednesday in Manhattan's Riverside Park, even using a helicopter before until the animal secreted itself in deep brush near Grant's Tomb.
There have been no reports of aggression so far, but in general coyotes have been known to go after people and pets. Two attacks also occurred in New Jersey's Bergen County, where one of the animals tested positive for rabies.
All told, the city's population likely numbers in the teens, wildlife biologist Chris Nagy, a co-founder of a study group called the Gotham Coyote Project and the research director at the Mianus River Gorge in Bedford, New York, told The AP. It's a number that could increase as the animals continue to adapt to urban spaces.
"We'll just have to adapt our behavior and accept the fact that they're going to be around," says Patrick Thomas, general curator of the Wildlife Conservation Society, who's captured images of coyotes on a motion-activated camera in his own New Jersey backyard.
But New Yorkers are not the only city dwellers with new neighbors. Increasing, coyotes have been found across many major North American cities, including Chicago, where, since 2000, hundreds of urban coyotes have been caught, tagged and released for tracking.
Stan Gehrt, an Ohio State University professor who specializes in coyote research in Cook County, said an estimated 2,000 coyotes might call the Windy City home, according to The Chicago Tribune.
"Once they got there, they experienced higher reproduction, more food, and so now they have no reason to leave," he said. "People think animals living in that habitat are less fit or sick, and the opposite is actually true."
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