Coyotes are part of the history of the American Southwest and deserve to be treated with the respect that they deserve. Unfortunately, because of human encroachment in Southern California, San Diego county, coyotes and people have now overlapped in their lives on a very frequent basis to the detriment of both.
I am writing this letter to bring to your attention something that I believe is unfair and reauires immediate attention. Living here in San Diego has given me a unique insight into the impact that we have on our beautiful natural surroundings. As you may already be aware, coyotes are part of both the history and very fabric of the American Southwest. As the human population has grown here in San Diego, the need for more housing being constructed has changed exponentionally. But with this human expansion in to new areas that were once uninhabited, we have dramatically changed the balance of nature. More specifically, we have had an enormous, negative impact on the coyote population and forced them to raise their pups and find food in areas that due to human intervention, have become foreign as well as dangerous.
Coyotes and humans have now become thrust into each others world. The results of this has been that coyotes have become in the publics perception, the "dangerous predator" that lurks outside.
One of the goals of this petition is to keep people away from coyotes and coyotes away from people. By creating locations designated within protected wilderness areas for donated food to be supplied to the coyote population. The goal of this action is to prevent coyotes from having to roam through human populated areas looking for food. Once the coyotes discover that there is food, donated by the public, abundant in protected areas, their need to venture into other areas to attempt to find food would become a distant behavior over time.
It is imperative that once we as humans alter or remove the natural habitat for animals that share our location geographically, we must do everything possible, within reason, to rectify our actions and create an alternative solution to rebalance our natural environment.
