provided to The Santiva Chronicle
The first confirmed sighting of a coyote on Sanibel was in the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge in March 2011. Since then, the City of Sanibel Natural Resources Department and its partners at the J.N. “Ding” Darling Refuge, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF), and the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) have been striving to monitor and better understand the coyote population on Sanibel.
Working collaboratively as the Sanibel Coyote Working Group (CWG) since 2014, scientists have been closely monitoring the impact of coyotes on nesting loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtle nests. As a federally designated threatened species, loggerheads are protected under the Federal Loggerhead Recovery Plan…