Pennsylvania Game News - June 2019 - 22

their food dishes; birdfeeders; habituated
wildlife and feral pets; vegetable and fruit
gardens, even mast-producing trees and
vegetation.
Raccoons, coyotes and bears are
opportunistically omnivorous: they eat
what comes easiest. And the longer they
coexist with people, the more resourceful
they often become.

WHY?

Why are they coming to cities?
The apparent answer would be that
available habitat is filled. But it really
doesn't seem like excessive furbearer
populations are spilling into urban areas.
Rather, it appears these cleaver furbearers have taken notice of the opportunities
civilization provides, and they're adapting
to city life.
There's no doubt,
though, that black bears
and coyotes are doing
better in Pennsylvania than
they were 50 years ago. Back
then, the state's bear population was
in trouble and its coyote population was
in its infancy. Now, the Commonwealth
has 20,000 bears, and coyotes reside in
every county.
Both are trying to fit in on a landscape
holding a million more Pennsylvanians
than in the 1990s. It helps explain why
more bears and coyotes turn up in places
we don't expect them.
And from the look of things, some have
adjusted to urban life quickly.
"Coyotes are the most adaptable and
opportunistic mesocarnivore (predator
with a diet of 50 to 70 percent meat) in the
eastern United States," said Matt Lovallo,
the Game Commission's Game Mammals
Section supervisor. "Because they're so
opportunistic, they are not occupying a
22

vacant niche per se. They are long-range
dispersers and when they encounter available food supplies and limited mortality,
they are likely to reside and form family
groups."
Coyote harvests have documented an
increase in southeastern and southcentral
counties since 2000, Lovallo added. And
there are only a few reasons for them to
want to press their boundaries, Lovallo
said.
"The only true motivator influencing
coyote movement into suburban areas is
readily available food supplies - mainly
pet food and refuse," he noted. "Without
these food supplies, dispersing coyotes
would not reside in suburban areas."
Raccoons, on the other hand, have
increased their presence in urban settings
as a result of limited harvest opportunities
there. When coupled with statewide raccoon harvests that are lower than at any
other time over the past two decades, it's
not hard to see why raccoons are moving
into town.
Philadelphia County Game Warden
Jerry Czech noted he's received a lot
of calls from the city's animal-control
department about raccoons in Philly the
past few years. The department, which
deals primarily with dogs and cats, cannot
address such issues because raccoons are
wildlife, he said.
"There have been a few City Council
hearings on raccoons in some parts of the
city," Czech noted. "Many residents in
poorer neighborhoods, or who live near
rundown or abandoned homes, want them
removed, but they have no means to hire
pest-control specialists."
Raccoons seem to have no qualms
about sharing a house with other occupants. Their standards seem no different
for garages and other outbuildings. And
Pennsylvania Game News - June 2019

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