Save Glendale Coyotes!

 Residents in a Glendale, California neighborhood are urging authorities not to trap and kill the coyotes dwelling in a burned-down house in the Brockmont neighborhood.

Homeowners in Glendale are asking city and Los Angeles County officials to wait until the burned-out residence that the coyotes are calling home is demolished next week in the hope that the animals will simply move.

This native predator, the coyote, has a well-deserved reputation for intelligence and adaptability, surviving large-scale attempts to eliminate the species. 

The coyote is a keystone species at the top of an arch holds all the stones in place. Without it, the arch collapses. Healthy ecosystems needs keystones—like coyotes—to function. Keystone species are the architects of biodiversity.

Social structure of coyotes varies with habitat conditions and prey availability. Coyotes keep pesky animals like rodents in check in the neighborhood, eating the abundant population of rodents and wild hares. Coyotes from this particular pack have not shown to be aggressive toward people in the neighborhood. They're not hungry or desperate enough to be aggressive because of the abundance of wild rodents in the area. 

Neighbors say they moved into the neighborhood to be close to nature. A county spokesman has said they have been looking into setting traps but that would be a last resort if the coyotes don't leave and become aggressive.

Killing methods are coming under increasing public and scientific scrutiny as a growing body of literature challenges the ethics and effectiveness of methods that are inherently indiscriminate and often inhumane.

An increasing number of scientists have begun to speak out against lethal control. Their studies show that coyotes play a vital ecological role and their removal can have a devastating impact on species diversity and the health and integrity of native ecosystems.

The ecological effects of removing large carnivores from the landscape may have long-term consequences that scientists are starting to fully comprehend. By studying the effects of their removal on ecosystems, biologists have found that many large native carnivores are “keystone species” that play a pivotal role in maintaining ecological integrity and preserving species diversity. The disappearance of a keystone species can trigger the loss of other resident species, and the intricate connections among the remaining residents begin to unravel, dramatically changing the habitat. In a "domino effect," species losses cascade through the ecosystem, as the disappearance of one species prompts the loss of still others. As argued by conservation biologists, “Our current knowledge about the natural processes that maintain biodiversity suggests a crucial and irreplaceable role of top predators. The absence of top predators appears to lead inexorably to ecosystem simplification accompanied by a rush of extinctions.”

The health of natural systems relies on the presence of predators, especially apex

predators. Intact, healthy ecosystems provide benefits to humans such as clean water,

forest regeneration, seed dispersal, natural pest control, disease regulation, improved

nutrient cycling, climate regulation, healthy native plant communities in upland and

riparian settings, which in turn contributes to soil fertility, stream bank stability, healthy

fish and insect populations, and much more.

 Coyotes maintain the balance in the food web below and around them. When coyotes are absent or even just greatly reduced in a natural area, the relationships between species below them in the web are altered, putting many small species at risk. 

 Literally thousands of studies have shown that when predators are removed from their food webs, the systems become unbalanced and unhealthy, triggering often-catastrophic alterations unlikely to ever be reversed. We simply cannot keep the current pace of species and habitat reduction/elimination if we want to remain healthy ourselves.