Wilderness Predators are moving into urban areas.
About five miles from Chicago O’Hare International Airport, scientists have located the smallest known coyote territory ever observed. For at least six years, a coyote community has maintained its existence within about a third of a square mile….“The coyote is the test case for other animals. Raccoons, skunks, foxes – they’ve already been able to penetrate the urban landscape pretty well. The coyote is the most recent and largest. The jury’s out with what’s going to happen with the bigger ones,” he said.
The bigger ones include wolves, mountain lions and bears. Mountain lions have been seen on the fringes of cities already, and one was shot near the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago.
Of course they’re talking bears, wolves and lions taking PERMANENT residence in the cities, even today you can spot one in fairly populated areas as they wander looking for food.
You don’t just need a bear gun if you’re hiking in a national park, or out in the sticks!
h/t Mrs. Weer’d
The Des Moines PD shot a mountain lion in town 2 weeks ago. Of course, the DNR pretends it is the only one ever found in Iowa. Even though everyone and their dog has seen one.
Sometime last year, the Blacksburg PD chased a bear out of a parking garage. IIRC, it had gotten onto the pedestrian bridge that goes to the neighboring building.
About 5 years ago, my car was chased by three young Coyotes for about a half a mile. Considering this occurred in the ‘Burbs about 20 miles or so as the Crow flies from Downtown Cleveland, I’m surprised that this is even news.
Which reminds me. I need to renew my Plates on the ’89m Buick. It’s DEER Season up here on the Interstate, and I aim to fill my Tag!
We get mountain lions wandering down into the west side of Salt Lake Valley all the time. What happens is that kids and dogs usually run the poor damn critter ragged until they can hole up in somebody’s garage or storage shed until the animal control people come and rescue it.
I lived in Chicago when the mountain lion was spotted. The cops cornered it in an alley, and took 55 shots to kill it. They could have saved some ammo money by contracting a gang member.
If it had been a dog they wouldn’t have had any trouble shooting it dead.