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Urban coyote populations could be just the beginning of animal predators making their way towards the big cities.
Scientists have located a coyote territory about five miles from Chicago O'Hare International Airport that has been around for at least six years.
"That's an indication that they don't have to go far to find food and water. They're finding everything they need right there, in the suburbs of Chicago," Stan Gehrt, an associate professor of environment and natural resources at
The Ohio State University, said in a statement.
He said coyotes are the largest of the mammalian carnivores to have made their way to urban settings.
"The coyote is the test case for other animals. Raccoons, skunks, foxes - they've already been able to penetrate the urban landscape pretty well," he said in the statement. "The coyote is the most recent and largest. The jury's out with what's going to happen with the bigger ones."
The bigger predators that may move into urban settings could one day include wolves, mountain lions and bears. Mountain lions have already been spotted before near the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago.
"They are going to be an even bigger challenge," Gehrt said.
Gehrt and his team have been able to capture and track about 680 coyotes since they began bagging and tagging them in 2000. He believes that about 2,000 coyotes live in the Chicago metro area, along with 9 million people in 250 separate municipalities.
Comment: Let's suppose for a moment that this is not related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. If that's the case, either we have a new spill from a different platform or the ocean floor itself is 'opening up' in different places as part of global geological changes. Both scenarios are worrisome.
On the other hand, if this is indeed Deepwater Horizon then it confirms what we always suspected: We were lied to, the leak was never fixed, and it has been leaking all this time. All they did was sink the oil with toxic corexit to hide the evidence.