Wondering where those wiley coyotes are roaming?
The University of Calgary has launched an online tool for people to let their neighbours know if a coyote's been spotted in their community.
Living with Coyotes allows Calgarians to record their observations of coyotes in the Calgary area as well as learn about coyotes in the city.
The tool can help identify areas where higher risks of coyote-pet and coyote-human interactions may occur.
It is also an educational website, providing recent results of research on Calgary coyotes, links to other coyote websites and organizations, tips for coexisting with coyotes, and information on coyote ecology.
"The mapping tool is one component of the website, and is more than a system to report coyotes, it allows us to monitor patterns in coyote behaviour and flag those patterns indicating a risk to people or pets," says Dr. Shelley Alexander.
"In those instances we can take preventative measures such as alerting Animal Services or increasing public awareness."
Living with Coyotes utilizes Google maps and enables Calgarians to pinpoint the location of a coyote and the behavior observed. It also allows the user to input further details pertaining to the observation such as if they saw a den, scat, tracks, the number of coyotes observed and whether or not there was behavior exhibited that would elicit further investigation.
