Coyotes. In the last two decades they've become common in almost every North American metropolitan area.Stanley Gehrt is a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State University who studies urban coyotes in Chicago.He spoke October 20th at the ScienceWriters2014 meeting in Columbus, Ohio,about why coyotes are so good at adapting to various environments:"For mammalian carnivores, the 20-kilogram point, 20 to 21 kilograms, is the key here.Because mammalian predators that stay below that number can exist on prey smaller than them.And they're often solitary or they only form small groups.And they can scavenge and be able to meet their energetic needs."But it they exceed 20 kilograms in body weight,now they have to eat prey that's their size or larger to be able to maintain their energetic requirement.So they often are hunting prey larger than them, which requires often sociality.And so that's why wolves rely a lot on deer, moose, elk, that they have to hunt cooperatively."Some of our coyotes get right to that 20-kilogram level,and that's the perfect spot,because what they can do is they can either exist quite well on prey smaller than them, and that's typically what they do,or if they have to, if the conditions dictate it, then they can hunt and consume prey larger than them.
