Food Source Crackdown Cuts Portsmouth Coyote Sightings

PORTSMOUTH, RI — A Portsmouth neighborhood is seeing far fewer coyotes after researchers were able to identify and remove two major food sources. Graphs from the Narragansett Bay Coyote study show two major hotspots where coyotes were going to feed. After removing these food sources, sightings in these areas dropped off dramatically.

Researchers fitted "Hank" the coyote with a GPS-tracker collar, which allowed them to follow his movement throughout the area, including where he stopped to eat. Clusters of dots show two popular coyote feeding sites, which the organization then focused on.

The NBCS then reached out to the Portsmouth Police Department, who sent a notice to residents in the highlighted areas asking them to remove potential food sources. The difference was clearly almost immediately, as a survey of the same are taken three to five weeks later shows no coyote activity in either area.

"The collared animal, and likely his pack members, quickly figured out there is no longer a food reward when going to either residence," said Dr. Numi Mitchell, the lead scientist for NBC. "Coyote traffic has dropped and the risk of people or pets encountering a coyote has been greatly reduced by removing the food subsidies."

The organization has believed food sources to be a major cause of increased coyotes sightings for several years, and is now rolling out experiments in communities such as in Portsmouth to safely reduce the number of coyotes in residential areas.

"It is our job to provide scientific data that show, if we prevail, that coyote populations and coyote behavior can be controlled by managing human-generated food subsidies," Mitchell continued. "This was our first experiment with stopping residential feeding – and the results so far are pretty dramatic."

Because researchers cannot monitor all Rhode Island communities simultaneously, residents who are seeing a lot of coyotes near their homes are encouraged to look for popular food sources such as open compost piles, outdoor pet food or free-roaming chickens. Purposefully providing food for coyotes is banned by the Department of Environmental Management and can result in a fine.