According to a news article entitled, "Bears to blame for Nfld. caribou decline: minister", which you can read at the following website:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/12/06/nl-coyote-caribou-1206.html, it now appears that Bears rather than coyotes are responsible for a decline in Newfoundland and Labrador's Caribou population.
Newfoundland and Labrador's environment minister Charlene Johnson "said the government is three years into a five-year study of the caribou population and preliminary research shows black bears are a bigger threat to caribou than coyotes."
This certainly is good news for the coyotes in Newfoundland and Labrador. According to the website:http://www.projectcoyote.org/events/ISUWEMconf.html,
"As the largest carnivore in many urban landscapes, coyotes can play a vital role in maintaining species diversity and ecological integrity. Moreover, coyotes provide positive ecosystem services in ways that are just beginning to be understood, though as yet such services remain unquantified."
"Coyotes play an important role in the ecosystem, helping to keep rodent populations under control." (source:
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/keepmewild/coyote.html ) " Coyotes have been demonized and hunted out of all proportion to the actual risks they pose to humans. Like the wolf, they have seen their habitat encroached upon as wild lands are "developed." Coyotes are known to eat a domestic cat when no other prey is readily available, but again, this is a direct result of ever-expanding human habitation - not to mention the carelessness of leaving one's pets outside unattended." (source: http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/ar-recognized.html )
"There are three predominant reasons why coyotes have been able to expand their range so greatly. First, one of the coyotes’ greatest predators, the gray wolf, has been wiped out from much of its former range. Due to habitat destruction and hunting, the wolf is now extirpated from much of the U.S. Second, the conversion of land through logging and agriculture has altered the landscape to a more favorable habitat for coyotes (Gompper 2002b). Third, humans relocated coyotes from the West. There are records of coyote releases in Maine, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Southeast (Gompper 2002a)."
"Coyotes are the top predator throughout much of the Northeast. The top-down effect is the ability of apex predators to disproportionately affect ecosystems. Now that coyotes are filling this niche in the Northeast, they are able to influence animal communities. In particular, coyotes may limit smaller carnivores (Gompper 2002b). By influencing smaller carnivores, coyotes may indirectly affect bird communities. In the Southern California study, researchers found a positive relationship between coyotes and scrub bird populations. Scrub bird populations were higher in fragments were coyotes were detected because of the coyotes influence on mesopredators (Crooks and Soulé 1999 ). " (source:http://www.duke.edu/web/nicholas/bio217/ekc7/coyotes.htm )
Now that Bears have been labelled as causing the decline in Caribou populations in Newfoundland and Labrador I hope that Government officials and residents there stop using the coyote as a scapegoat, and instead learn that this species has a rightful place in the ecoystem! Instead of demanding the right to shoot these animals, learn to live with them and recognize their adaptability and success as a species. If anything it is humans who have caused many of the problems relating to coyotes in Newfoundland and Labrador not the coyotes themselves.
Source of image:http://hal_macgregor.tripod.com/kennel/wolves.html
