Coyotes (Canis latrans) have established populations in most major urban centers across North America. While the risk of attacks on humans or their pets is low, the presence of carnivores in areas with high human use has resulted in increased public concern. Having a clearer understanding of which animals are more likely to interact with humans and when interactions are more likely to occur will help mitigate conflicts. Despite clear patterns of human avoidance, human-coyote interactions occur most frequently in residential areas. Our purpose was to determine if use of residential areas varied consistently across individuals or time. We used locations from GPS collars deployed on 14 coyotes in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada from 2012-2017 to fit a step selection function. Average (± SE) home range size estimates were 17.3 ± 4.6 km2 for resident coyotes and 102.8 ± 32.9 km2 for non-residents. We found that coyotes used natural areas more (β = 0.07, SE = 0.02, p < 0.0001), and roads (β = −0.50, SE = 0.13, p < 0.0001) and residential areas (β = −0.79, SE = 0.21, p = 0.0001) less during the day than at night. We also found that coyotes were more likely to use residential areas in the breeding season from January – April (β = 0.69, SE = 0.20, p = 0.0007) and the pup rearing season from May – August (β = 0.54, SE = 0.13, p < 0.0001) than in the dispersal season from September – December. Lastly, we found that resident coyotes were less likely to use residential areas than non-resident coyotes (β = −1.13, SE = 0.26, p < 0.0001). As far as we are aware, our study is the first to identify the seasons when coyotes are more likely to use residential areas. The seasonal patterns in habitat use that we observed reflect patterns that have been previously reported for human-coyote conflicts. Our results demonstrate that reducing the availability of anthropogenic food sources in residential areas, particularly in the winter and spring, should be a priority for managers aiming to reduce human-coyote conflict in urban areas.

中文翻译：

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城市郊狼对居民区使用的个体和时间变化

土狼（Canis latrans）已在北美大多数主要城市中心建立了种群。虽然袭击人类或其宠物的风险较低，但在人类使用率较高的地区，食肉动物的存在引起了公众越来越大的关注。对哪些动物更可能与人类交互以及何时更可能发生交互的更清晰的了解将有助于减轻冲突。尽管人类回避的方式很明确，但人与土狼之间的互动最常发生在居民区。我们的目的是确定居住区的使用是否因个人或时间而异。我们使用了2012-2017年在加拿大安大略省大多伦多地区的14只土狼中部署的GPS项圈中的位置，以适应阶跃选择功能。平均（±SE）家庭范围大小估计为17.3±4。居民土狼6平方公里，非居民土狼102.8±32.9平方公里。我们发现土狼使用的自然区域更多（β= 0.07，SE = 0.02，p <0.0001），道路（β= -0.50，SE = 0.13，p <0.0001）和居民区（β= -0.79，SE = 0.21 ，p = 0.0001）白天比晚上少。我们还发现，在1月至4月的繁殖季节（β= 0.69，SE = 0.20，p = 0.0007）和5月至8月的幼崽饲养季节（β= 0.54，SE = 0.13），土狼更有可能使用栖息地。 ，p <0.0001），而不是9月至12月的扩散季节。最后，我们发现常驻土狼比非常驻土狼使用居住区的可能性较小（β= −1.13，SE = 0.26，p <0.0001）。据我们所知，我们的研究是第一个确定土狼更可能使用居住区的季节的研究。我们观察到的栖息地使用的季节性模式反映了以前因人土狼冲突而报道的模式。我们的结果表明，减少居住区特别是冬季和春季的人为食物来源的可用性，应是旨在减少城市地区人土狼冲突的管理人员的优先事项。