So a few coyotes are all up in City Park, and have killed some
peoples' pets, and
its up on the news etc. Growing up, undomesticated
animals regularly lead to injuries/deaths of my own + friends' pets. In
many areas it is common knowledge that animals attack other animals.
I remember when an alligator ate a friend's date's dog, while on a walk in City Park years ago. In San Diego, lost cats are assumed to be coyote snacks, no big deal.
[RIP Spot, gotta watch out for them possums]
I hope they don't
attack a kid (which hasn't happened, but people are scared of it), in
the same way that I hope a car doesn't run over a kid (which happens
regularly, but driving is so convenient), or that someone isn't booted
from their house in favor of a more financially stable resident (which
I'm sure can be connected to all of this but its too early in the
morning and you don't wanna read me rant).
Coyotes are
invasive, and so is the human. Coyotes have a mechanism for handling
excessive population density: fighting intruder coyotes, potentially to
the death. Rumor has it that many coyotes were actually unsuccessfully
brought to NO, to solve the invasive nutria problem, who were introduced
in 1930's from S America for fur farming industry. But thats another
story. At what point do we concede that people have changed the
environment so much that many "invasive" species are actually "mismanaged"
due to our own invasiveness, overdevelopment, and general messing with everything for our own benefit without expectation of repurcussions?? Our population is
tipping the environmental seesaw down into the mud til it aint a fun
game anymore and on the other end we are rocketing any non-human
entities into space because its OUR game and THEY don't get to help
choose the rules.
Thinking of situations in which animal (or
plant, etc) populations have been accounted for as human populations
expand. Like, wildlife crossing bridges, or even less after-the-fact*.
What examples do you have, where human infrastructure and development
has made ways for coexistence with the untamed world?
 |
| wildlife crossing at Banff Nat'l Park, Alberta, Canada (via Twisted Sifter link below) |
Amazing Animal Bridges Around the World, via Twisted Sifter
A History of Urban Coyote Problems, by Robert M Timm + Rex O Baker
*due to nature's resilience, achieved over millions of years, the repercussions of human actions often go without visibility for a long time (as viewed by such short-lived creatures as humans). This means that the initial (often forseeable yet ignored) harm on the environment is sometimes passed on to unsuspecting populations in the future, or simply acknowledged in some way later on (such as creating landbridges over existing highways). Any stats on how often wildlife bridges are constructed at the same time as the highways they try to mitigate?
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