#5 A very Coyotes Globalisation

Stan Gehrt knows a thing or two about Coyotes. He studies them after all and runs the Cook County Coyote Project, which started in 2000 and was needed to supply much-needed ecological information about the urban coyotes. Stan estimates that there are about 4,000 coyotes in Chicago alone. Every once in a while they attack a human, and it makes the news. Though there has been only one recorded fatal encounter between a coyote and a human, sometime in 1981 in the United States, and in 2009 in Nova Scotia, Canada. Coyotes do get bad press after all. So, why are there so many coyotes out there? Turns out the impersonal trade regimes, and personal tastes are at play here. Coyotes have been historically hunted for their pelts which can sell for as much as US$ 100, and are used for lining fur jackets, especially the fashionable Canada Goose jackets. However, the preference for American fur by Chinese, and Russian buyers has slumped in recent years due to a marked shift away from wearing fur except by very small tribe of haute-couture wallahs. Therefore the coyotes have been having a resurgence in their numbers, as their old foes the Wolves are severely restricted in North America. The plentiful supply of easy food is compelling the coyotes to be in the cities.

Human-wildlife conflict plays out in the same fashion across the world in cities of India the same thing plays out with Macquaes. The villages have a problem with wild Boars. The question is are coyotes very deadly? Turns out not as much as dogs which kill around 50 people in the US and send thousands to hospitals. Coyotes large predators though they are, are not as threatening as they appear.
However, it goes on to show that a slight change in preference halfway across the globe can have a marked change in the ecology of a place.