[jhide]

Coyotes attacked a small dog in the park near my house last fall (when the juveniles leave the den and try to stake out territory) so I understand the concern. But comparing them to lions in Zimbabwe doesn’t resonate with me and I live in Chicago (we have tons, one was under my porch last year).

Think of all the samples of the interaction function between humans and the >1mm coyotes (often unbeknownst to the humans) in American cities each day. The list of all attacks recorded in modern times has a Wikipedia page. In human-created spaces we make very little separation from the habitats coyotes live in. They choose not to predate the defenseless babies they encounter in backyards because it is not the ecological niche they have carved out.

I will let my older children play unsupervised in my backyard despite knowing there are dozens of coyotes in my city because no creature has made a niche out of killing them. The same is not true for my very young children but that’s because toddlers have made an evolutionary niche out of killing themselves :)

[Y_Y]

> samples of the interaction function between humans and the >1mm coyotes (often unbeknownst to the humans)

I'm now more worried by the possibility of ≤1 mm micro-coyotes.