Georgia’s capital is home to more than 6 million people, a bustling film and music scene, and one of the most adaptable species in the U.S.: the coyote.

And now, thanks to new video footage from the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, we’re getting a better idea of how and where coyotes spend their time in Atlanta.

In partnership with Wildlife Atlanta and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, UGA is releasing GPS collar videos from coyotes in the Atlanta area as part of their urban mammal ecology project. One of the goals of this study is to provide insight into coyotes’ daily activities in the hope of minimizing negative human interactions with coyotes.

The videos show that coyotes largely avoid both interactions with people and areas where people are likely to be during the day. Some of the footage shows a coyote resting in a wooded area off the interstate, a coyote grooming a pup near its den in the forest and a group of coyotes drinking water from a creek.

But the videos also confirm that coyotes are opportunistic creatures. Once night falls, collar footage shows a coyote snagging a fast-food bag from a parking lot, and another clip sees a mated pair hanging out near a radio station parking lot.

“Coyotes have expanded their range east, demonstrating their incredible resilience and ability to adapt. Now, they’re even found in some of the densest urban centers in the country,” said Michel Kohl, the primary investigator of the project and an associate professor in UGA’s Warnell School. “A lot of what we see in Atlanta can be applied to other large metropolitan areas as well.”

Kohl hopes these videos can answer some of the most pressing questions people have about these canines and reassure them that coyotes pose little risk to humans.

Are there coyotes in Atlanta?

Yes. In fact, coyotes are found in just about every state in the U.S., including urban areas.

Although coyotes can now be found in all 159 counties in Georgia, they first arrived sometime in the 1970s. And it took some time for them to make their way into the metro-Atlanta area, Kohl said.

Coyotes are traditionally most active at dawn and dusk. But in their effort to avoid interactions with humans (and vehicles), urban coyotes have become more active at night.

If you do see one during the day, though, there’s no need for alarm.

“That’s not necessarily an abnormal thing,” Kohl said. “People might have moved into the park where it was and scared it out of its location. It doesn’t mean that the coyote has rabies.”

While coyotes can become infected with rabies, it’s not common.

“The risk of contracting rabies from a coyote is very low, but the fear is very high because people are not necessarily exposed to large wild animals like coyotes,” said Summer Fink, a doctoral student in the Warnell School involved in the research.

Are coyotes going to injure my child?

As the videos show, coyotes aren’t keen on interacting with people.

Coyote attacks on humans are extremely rare. When they do occur, it often stems from factors such as people feeding coyotes.

If you see a coyote that’s too close for comfort, make loud noises to chase it off. You can also spray it with a hose or turn on your sprinklers to encourage it to leave the area.

Are coyotes going to injure my pets?

Probably not, but there are some things you can do to protect your furry friends.

Don’t feed or approach a coyote, and secure your garbage, pet food and birdseed so coyotes (and other wildlife) can’t access it. Similarly, close off crawl spaces so coyotes don’t take up residence under your house.

It’s also important to keep small pets inside or on a leash when on bathroom breaks.

Data shows that coyote diets largely consist of small mammals and fruit—and the occasional discarded hamburger.

But the collar videos did show several instances of coyotes feeding on feral cats. The videos don’t show whether the cats were scavenged roadkill or killed by the coyotes.

The videos did not show any interactions between coyotes and dogs.

“Unlike dogs, people like to let cats roam freely, but the biggest thing you can do to keep them safe is to keep your cats indoors,” said Carson Daniel, an associate wildlife biologist and the urban wildlife extension assistant leading the camera collar research.

What diseases can coyotes carry?

Most of the diseases you vaccinate your dog for, coyotes can also contract. That includes rabies, distemper, parvo and heartworms.

The good news is keeping your dogs and cats updated on these vaccines and preventive medications minimizes their risk of disease.

Rabies poses the biggest risk to people, but it is largely transmitted through bites. If you take the steps above to minimize interactions with coyotes, the risk of being bitten by one is extremely low.

For more information on living with coyotes and to see clips from the GPS collar videos, visit the Wildlife Atlanta website.

Many lakes in North America are affected in varying degrees by invasive alien plants.

An invasive plant is one that colonizes (or has colonized in the past) new sites or regions at a rapid rate and produces dominant populations, either in terms of coverage or numbers, or both. Humans contribute to the invasion by introducing the plant or preparing the ground for the invader.

A plant invasion is not necessarily a major problem for the environmental health of a body of water. But it is certainly a visible and disturbing problem for shoreline property owners.

In the northeast of the continent and in certain areas of the Midwestern United States, Eurasian watermilfoil is the most worrisome invasive aquatic plant. Is it possible to prevent its spreading? Yes, but the price of doing so is high and the battle is a permanent one.

For several years now, my research team at Laval University has been looking not only at the scientific relevance of controlling the spread of invasive plants, but also at the operational feasibility and costs of doing so. These, in the final analysis, are often the only things that matter.

An invader from Asia

Eurasian watermilfoil is a herbaceous vascular plant. Its sap circulates in vessels, which means it is not an alga.

It was introduced to the United States in the 1940s from China or South Korea, probably as an aquarium plant. It has since spread to all the American states and three Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Ontario and Québec).

It colonizes shallow areas of ponds, lakes and rivers, where it forms very dense beds that cover several thousand square meters. Its effects on biodiversity are poorly documented. However, since it occupies the same space, at depth, as several North American aquatic plants, it probably impoverishes the plant diversity of bodies of water when it is present in high densities by monopolizing resources (light, nutrients).

It has a greater impact on swimming, boating and even property values, particularly in small lakes where it can sometimes cover the entire surface area.

A long-term battle

In the United States, watermilfoil is usually controlled by herbicides. These have a very short-term effect and spraying has to be repeated regularly to maintain control. Native plants are often more affected by the pesticide than watermilfoil is, leaving the invader free to roam.

Removing the stems and roots is a more effective approach. Lake George and Upper Saranac Lake (110 and 19 square kilometers, respectively), in New York State, are among the very few lakes in North America to have significantly and, above all, sustainably reduced the surface area of their watermilfoil beds this way.

This feat has been achieved thanks to patient digging operations by large teams of divers who have removed thousands of kilograms of watermilfoil over the years.

At Upper Saranac Lake, the watermilfoil control campaign, which began in 2004, removed more than 22 metric tons of the plant (slightly more than a 12-wheel dump truck) in the first three years. The effort involved almost 35,000 person-hours of diving, but the quantity of watermilfoil (biomass) in the lake was reduced by 97 percent. It was like taking a sledgehammer to the invader.

Intensive control was then followed by maintenance control, which for several years has resulted in a minimal summer harvest (20 kilograms in 2023). This work is exemplary in terms of sustainability, but it has nevertheless cost a total of more than $2 million dollars.

My team repeated the experiment in a smaller lake in southern Québec, the Lac des Abénaquis (one square kilometer). We hypothesized that we could achieve the same result as at Upper Saranac Lake but more quickly, and at a lower cost, by using synthetic benthic mats to cover the large beds. These tarps act as a physical barrier to the growth of the stems, and can eliminate the watermilfoil underneath in just ten weeks. They can then be used elsewhere in subsequent summers.

Thanks to sound strategic planning that prioritized the most problematic watermilfoil beds, we managed to reduce the surface area of watermilfoil in the lake by 95 percent in just five years. So it’s working! But to achieve this, we had to invest more than $200,000 for each hectare of weed that was eliminated.

What’s more, if the results of intensive control are not preserved in the future by maintenance control that eliminates the rebuilding watermilfoil beds without delay—because the plant can never be completely eradicated from a lake—this investment will have been a complete waste, since it will only take a few years to return to the initial situation.

Think carefully about the plan

The cost of combating watermilfoil can be cut in half if volunteers and local players such as municipalities get involved. But it is still very costly if it is undertaken late, i.e. once the watermilfoil has become firmly established.

Before embarking on a control campaign, the riverside property owners’ associations and municipalities concerned must first carry out a full health check of their lake and prioritize the disruptive agents.

If watermilfoil is only a visible symptom of deeper problems, investing in control may not be the wisest course of action. In that case, it would be better to invest at the source in things like reducing nitrogen and phosphorus inputs, rather than pulling up roots and installing tarps.

It’s a good idea to think through any actions carefully. Fortunately, citizens and their representatives are becoming better equipped to make informed decisions based on sound science to improve the state of their lakes.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.