Coyote Management Plans and Wildlife Watch: implications for community coaching approach to public outreach in southern California

Abstract

The majority of residents in southern California live in urban areas. Therefore, working with cities to promote tolerance and coexistence with urban wildlife is crucial to the conservation and management of native species. Human conflicts with coyotes (Canis latrans) illustrate the importance of incorporating the social sciences, particularly knowledge of human behavior, communication, and education, in a coyote management strategy. Here, we review 199 cities across southern California to determine which localities have a coyote management website or a coyote management plan. We also included cities that have collaborated with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in developing a “Wildlife Watch” program model. Wildlife Watch (based on the Neighborhood Watch national crime prevention program) uses conservation-oriented principles to empower local communities, agencies, and residents to remove wildlife attractants and to exclude or deter coyotes from neighborhoods. We examine how cities with coyote management websites and programs differ from cities without, based on U.S. census demographics. Using data from coyote conflict and sighting tools (Coyote Cacher, iNaturalist, and CDFW’s Wildlife Incident Reporting System) we compare coyote reports across cities with different management plans and websites. Finally, based on demographics from the US Census, we examine ways Wildlife Watch, or related programs, can be expanded and improved. An adaptive community-based program, like Wildlife Watch, offers a valuable toolkit to managers for navigating the diverse array of human perceptions, values, and attitudes regarding urban species and human-wildlife conflicts.