Anyone who has lived long enough in a city can tell you \u2013 with time, you just stop noticing strange new things. A unicycling bagpiper. A person changing clothes on the subway. Murals that transform streets into art.<\/p>\n
Coyotes in cities seem to be bolder as well and less afraid of new experiences. That\u2019s according to a new study that researchers conducted at more than a dozen sites across the US, comparing urban and rural coyotes\u2019 reaction to new stimuli.<\/p>\n
The results were consistent: urban animals didn\u2019t flinch when facing new objects. \u201cUrban coyotes nationwide take more risks compared to those coyotes in rural areas,\u201d says Javier Monz\u00f3n, a biologist at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, who co-authored the study. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that they are more aggressive, it just means that they\u2019re less afraid of unfamiliar stimuli.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study was the first to look at the issue of urban and rural coyotes over such a wide area \u2013 623 stations at 16 pairs of sites around the country. While coyotes have been living in the western US for thousands of years, in the past decades they have rapidly expanded into the rest of the continent due to lack of predators and an abundance of food.<\/p>\n
It was also a way to ask a broader question about urban wildlife in general \u2013 because coyotes are everywhere, Monz\u00f3n says. \u201cOne of the cool things about coyotes is that they\u2019re sort of ubiquitous,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it really was a good study system to explore whether urban wildlife behaves in a different way from their rural counterparts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers set up camera trap stations, with remote cameras triggered by any warm\u2011bodied animal moving in front of it. At half of those sites, they built structures with four posts and some string \u2013 a novel object that was unfamiliar to the coyotes. Inside the little structure, they placed a heaping teaspoon of meat bait and a tab of scent to attract the animals. The western urban coyotes spent about 4 seconds more near the bait area than their rural counterparts. The researchers said the behavioral gap is probably a product of less fear of harassment in cities, where recreational hunting is typically prohibited and coyotes face fewer direct threats from humans. Their findings were published in the journal<\/a> Scientific Reports in December 2025.<\/p>\n Niamh Quinn, a wildlife ecologist with the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, says the results don\u2019t surprise her. \u201cCoyotes are ridiculously adaptable,\u201d she says. \u201cThey just conduct their daily business of being coyotes among us, and really don\u2019t pay that much attention to us any more.\u201d<\/p>\n Coyote populations are surging in cities across the US. A 2016 study found coyotes present in 96 out of 105 cities surveyed. But many communities are struggling to figure out new ways to deal with predators in their neighborhoods, given concerns about confrontations with people, children and pets. In 2019, a study by the National Park Service found that 20% of urban coyotes\u2019 diets are made up of cats<\/a>.<\/p>\n Monz\u00f3n says that the new study\u2019s results may help cities manage their behavior better: while the gap between urban and rural coyotes was more pronounced in western cities, the findings were consistent across all cities. That means management techniques that work well in one place are probably going to work in another.<\/p>\n Quinn says the biggest research question to her is whether hazing \u2013 making coyotes uncomfortable around humans \u2013 actually works. It involves being big, bold and loud \u2013 using actions like shouting, waving arms or using noisemakers \u2013 until the animal completely leaves the area. And it\u2019s not clear at all if it\u2019s effective, she says. Sometimes it comes down to the individual. \u201cYou could haze a coyote and it could just look at you, and if it had a middle finger, it would essentially raise it,\u201d she says. \u201cOr you could haze a coyote and it could put its tail between its legs and not look back.\u201d<\/p>\n