Introduction

We can see wildlife in many places, like mountains, grasslands, and woods. Different biomes gave birth to different animals. The animals thrive in the certain environment they are born in and adapt to changes. Nearly every biome features its own special species. Those animals live there but don’t actively change the environment. Their existence makes nature more charming and diverse. However, there is one landscape that most of the wildlife can’t endure, the urban landscape. Unlike other landscapes, humans dominate the urban areas and modify the city in their favor. In urban areas, the living area of wildlife is minimal because of how humans abuse the environment. Therefore, most of the wildlife that lives in the city with humans are small animals like squirrels. Nevertheless, there is one large predator that can thrive in the cities and coexist with humans. If you live in the suburbs, near the mountains, or in compact neighborhoods, you are highly likely to see them. The large predator I’m talking about is coyotes. 

 

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      You may wonder how coyotes can coexist with humans but other large predators can’t. Gehrt gave us an answer to that question in his research article Home Range and Landscape Use of Coyotes in a Metropolitan Landscape: Conflict or Coexistence? “A fundamental question regarding the presence of wildlife in urban landscapes is whether they are attracted to human activities and somehow benefit from urban areas” (Gehrt et al. 1045). Coyotes took advantage of the second term of benefiting from the urban areas. Thanks to their strong adaptability, they can easily find food in the trash cans and digest the scavenger. Humans throw out their trash daily which creates a perfect food source for the coyotes. The existence of coyotes is a very opposite view of the flourishing cities. We as humans should respect them and their living areas. However, not everyone likes coyotes. Coyotes are facing many serious problems because of that and other factors that only cities have. We will dive more into this. 

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The Problem: Human Hatred & Persecution

      Coyotes are suffering and dying from many different human causes like traffic accidents, and food poisoning. One of the major problems coyotes are facing is the conflict with humans, which causes people’s hatred toward the coyotes, killing, and trapping. As I mentioned before, coyotes developed amazing adaptability over time which allows them to thrive in urban areas. The expansion of the coyote population and lack of education for the citizens increased the chance of coyote attack and property loss because of coyotes. The main goal of coyotes entering cities is to seek food, which makes people’s pets one of their options. Most people indeed treat their pets as their family members but fail to protect them properly. Coyotes don’t understand the relationship between humans and their pets. Therefore, they would enter people’s backyards and eat their pets. Camilla H. Fox mentioned this phenomenon in her research article Coyotes and Humans: Can We Coexist? “Anthropogenic sources of food and water in the form of unsecured garbage, pet food, free-roaming cats and small dogs, rodents, fruit trees, fruits of ornamental plants, ponds, and irrigation systems can attract coyotes” (Fox 287). Because of events like this, the reputation of coyotes is getting worse and worse. People who lost their pets or other properties built up hatred toward the coyotes and harmed them for revenge. They find ways to track coyotes down and shoot them. Coyotes are even being trapped and tortured. 

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      In some other cases, people are simply hunting coyotes for fun and money since coyotes’ skin is worth a fortune. Hadley Barndollar mentioned in her article Coyote Hunting Seasons Never Ends in New Hampshire - and Neither Does the Debate, “She was shaken by the encounter, and what she perceived to be shooting coyotes for fun” (Barndollar). The context is a lady heard a distressed call from a young animal and she went out to see what happened. In the woods, she found a speaker playing puppy coyote’s calling and two hunters were waiting for the adult coyotes to show up. The game of coyote hunting is not rare, it is happening everywhere. This is the link to a YouTube short of a person hunting a coyote which breaks my heart. I also found another short that a person trapped a coyote with a caption showing off his first coyote capture. The worst part is everybody in the comment is congratulating him for capturing that coyote and making this an honorable achievement. There are only a few large predators that live near humans and coyotes are one of the largest among them. This made them the targets of trap lovers and hunters since they needed to hunt down large and dangerous animals to exhibit their professionalism and skills. They caused unnecessary suffering and death to the coyotes and it is disrespectful to the living creatures.

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      Despite the illegal killing and trapping, the U.S. government is also killing coyotes for livestock protection and coyote population control. Barndollar mentioned in her article that 63,965 coyotes were trapped and killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Wildlife Service in 2021, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was using spring-loaded traps and dispersed cyanide powder to kill coyotes (Barndollar). These are all very cruel means to kill a living creature. 

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      During my research, an organization called the World Championship Coyote Calling Contest caught my attention. This organization focuses on holding contests of coyote hunting. The hunter who killed the most coyotes will be the world champion. The hunters are competing with each other and using coyotes’ lives as their stepping stones to win the game. Even though it is approved by law, it is a serious disrespect to lives and ethical issues. The coyotes became objects that the hunters used for fun. The lives of coyotes should be cared for, protected, and respected. 

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Since coyotes are threats to our properties, pets, food, and livestock, why should we protect them? Why can’t we eliminate them from our community so our pets will be safe? I believe many people have these questions in their minds. The answer to these questions is coyotes play an essential role in the environment. According to the website of Wolf Park, coyotes are responsible for eating small predators like raccoons and foxes. Without coyotes, the population of those small predators will increase dramatically to the degree that some bird populations will be eliminated from the area. The existence of coyotes significantly boosted the biodiversity of the urban areas. On the other hand, many of the problems caused by coyotes are fully avoidable with enough citizen education and government research. The residents will not leave their pets in the backyard alone if they are educated that coyotes can potentially eat them. The people can better protect themselves with enough knowledge of what to do when facing coyotes. The government could investigate the living range of the coyotes and avoid building houses near them or give warnings to the residents who live near those areas. On the moral level, We are only one of the species on the Earth. We should be sharing this land with all other residents of this planet and respect them. Eliminating one species for our interest is morally incorrect.

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Solutions?

Now, we have a general idea of the problems the coyotes are facing. They are being hated because of pet attacks, human attacks, and property damage which lead to being brutally killed and trapped by humans. How do we solve this problem? The best way to help coyotes is to reduce the cases of coyote attacks. If they don’t cause us trouble, coyotes and humans could coexist peacefully. However, it may sound easy on paper, but it is actually a very complicated problem since it involves both government management and civilian participation. According to the research article, Urban Human-Coyote Conflicts: Assessing Friendliness as an Indicator of Coexistence, by Cameron T. Whiteley, Malenie M. Bowers, and Harriett Grantz, “Whether the public supports coexistence plans stems from public perceptions of coyotes, which are influenced by affective feelings, personal beliefs and experiences, and the media. Consequently, understanding how the media discusses these issues, whether they frame coyotes as friends or foes, and whether they cover coexistence is essential” (Whitley et al. 1). TV news, newspapers, and other official news reporters play an essential role in what people think on a specific issue. The position of the media can effectively shape their audience’s opinion. This fact also applies to coyote-human conflicts. The global solution I suggest is media intervention. As the research explained, how the media frames coyotes has a significant impact on how the public will treat them. The government should encourage and appeal to the media to report why humans need coyotes and how coyotes benefit our environment. This is not propaganda because coyotes are indeed a vital part of the ecosystem and urban landscapes will have much more trouble if we wipe out coyotes. The media should also teach the public how to avoid conflicts with coyotes and what to do in an unavoidable encounter. Media is capable of delivering those messages directly and efficiently to the public and the government should utilize this feature. If the media participates in the protection of coyotes and public education, the problem could be solved effectively with the least amount of cost.

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     The grass-roots solution I found throughout the quarter is social media. Social media like Twitter can efficaciously deliver messages to the public just like formal media. However, it is much more accessible to the public and everyone can share their thoughts. We can also open up the social media whenever we want. Social media is open to everyone at any time. Throughout the course of Writing 60, I learned so many things about coyotes and wildlife on Twitter. There are numerous organizations and researchers share their findings and news daily. That information could be delivered to the public instantly and anyone interested can access them for free. One of the main reasons for the coyote attack is the lack of public education. The coyote-support and wildlife protection organization shares so much valuable information about coyotes and wildlife. Public education through social media is also a great way to solve the problem coyotes are facing. Some of the accounts I recommend you to follow are, Living with Coyotes, Defenders of Wildlife, and Project Coyote. You can learn so much information about coyotes and wildlife by scrolling their Twitter accounts. 

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     After all my research, the best solution I found is public education through the government. The government is the most authoritative source of information for most people. The announcement made by the government will be incredibly helpful for solving coyotes’ problems. According to the article Management of Conflicts Between Urban Coyotes and Humans in Southern California, by Rex O. Baker and Rober M. Timm, “Increased public education is needed to improve methods of landscape management, refuse disposal, care of pets, and recognition of the need for predator management” (Baker, Timm 1). The government should provide the public with enough information about coyotes to decrease the risk of coyote attacks, especially in California since we have mountains everywhere. Wasted food, unattended pets, pet food, and even unemptied trash can attract coyotes and cause damage. More importantly, many people have no idea of this information today. This lack of knowledge will cause more human-coyote conflicts and trigger more hatred toward coyotes. The government should host some public education sessions and send mails to the residents therefore they can be aware of the coyotes and reduce the amount of conflicts. In addition to the information on how to prevent coyote attacks, the government should also educate the public about the benefits of having coyotes in our community, like coyotes reduce the number of small predators in urban areas and keep the ecosystem stable. All these pieces of information are essential to protect coyotes and change the public opinion toward them. Some people may believe that government public education is ineffective since not everyone would listen to the government or care about coyotes. This is why the government should also inform the consequences if people don’t follow the suggestions. The consequences include losing pets, property damage, human attack, etc. The people will care more about an issue if it directly affects them. This way we can get more people to be aware of the problem and effectively help coyotes.

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     The reason why I believe the government's public education is more effective than media and social media is because it is more credible than the other two and people would care more about it. Trash and false information are all over social media which builds up strong distrust against it among the public. In the U.S., we have free press so it is difficult to get all the media to report the same point of view on an issue. Therefore, the government's public education becomes the most direct way to educate people about coyotes since the government is trustworthy and united. One government-operated website about human-wildlife conflict is the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. You can learn information about many different animals and relevant laws. This is a great example of the government’s public education. 

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Conclusion

     The Earth is the home of all living things. There are millions of species living on the Earth. We as humans are only one of the residents. We need to respect other species just as much as our neighbors. Coyotes don’t know their actions are causing trouble for humans. Sometimes they are just seeking food and protecting their territories. All these conflicts are avoidable by our behavior. We can’t eliminate coyotes because of those conflicts just like we can’t kill our neighbors when they do something that makes us angry. On the other hand, in many cases, we are the ones who are at fault because of our misconduct. We need to take action to protect coyotes and stop the hatred toward coyotes. Remember to follow the guidelines about coyotes, do not feed them, keep your pets indoors, secure the trash, leave pets' food inside, and many more. We can save coyotes and their reputation if we work together!

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