The North American coyote (Canis latrans) is sick and tired of chasing its prey endlessly through the wilderness, whether snaking around the desert southwest, skulking into the forests of the Pacific coast, or doing any more hard work ever again. A recently published image of a real coyote eating an actual roadrunner has prompted a certain establishment newspaper, The New York Times, to claim that the “Looney Tunes” version of the coyote’s plight is a “lie” and not “real.”
But, as any good scientist knows, anecdotes are not data. (But, for the record, here’s a countervailing video posted by CBS Local News of a roadrunner escaping from a coyote.) In reality, coyotes in record numbers have abandoned the chase over the past century, choosing instead to seek easier meals by relocating to major metropolitan areas across North America. Denver, Colorado, is reportedly home to over 1,000 coyotes. Chicago, Illinois, is home to roughly 4,000. And in sunny Los Angeles, California, the coyote population within the city limits now outnumbers its wild country cousins by a factor of seven. But this ratio doesn’t hold a candle to Seattle, according to a new study.
“We observed a ninefold increase in coyote density in Seattle compared to more natural areas of the state,” wildlife ecologist Laura Prugh said in a statement…