When humans move in and take over the territories of wild animals, they simply adapt to life around humans.
In Toronto, which likes to hail itself the world capital of the raccoon, the black-masked creatures know when to cross busy streets (at dawn) in the approximately 3 square blocks that they each generally n
avigate (unlike the 20 square miles their rural peers can roam) and how to knock over compost bins to get around raccoon-resistant locks that the city spent $31 million (Canadian; U.S.$23.3 million) installing, as a Toronto Star investigation last summer found.
Coyotes are quite adaptable, he says. And urban environments provide a lot of their necessities: prey, or plentiful food scraps on garbage day, and sheds or industrial spaces to den. They’ve learned if they go back north, they face predators like wolves, Mr. Moro adds. “I guess the closest thing you could call a predator in an urban environment would be a vehicle.”
Much more @ Invasion of urbanite raccoons: Toronto grapples with wild residents
