Tali Caspi

Coyote populations rebound faster than can be removed, UGA study says Coyotes in the Atlanta metro? Removing them permanently may not be possible.

Seeing your own research in the news is a crazy experience! We found that lethal control is not an effective strategy and coyotes are probably just the new normal. Amazing how an article can turn a lengthy study into a sound bite 😅

www.wsbtv.com/news/local/a...

Thank you @amandabartlett.bsky.social and @sfgate.com for this wonderful piece about my recently published research on San Francisco #coyotes. Read it to learn more about how studying the diet of urban animals can help us learn to better coexist with them 🐾

Congrats!!

Thanks so much!

Thank you!!

Photo of a coyote in San Francisco standing next to a whole chicken on a front lawn of a residence

In sum, urbanization was associated with greater among-individual niche variation and individual dietary specialization in coyotes, a pattern we propose reflects the effects of abundant anthropogenic food subsidies and spatial variation in env. conditions within cities. Photo by @sfacc.bsky.social

Stable isotope δ13C and δ15N ratios in vibrissae from coyotes in San Francisco color-coded by territorial affiliations.

Taken together, while each urban individual eats a narrow diet, individuals in the city eat quite different diets from one another, especially with regard to human food consumption. But like our scat study, individuals living in the same territories had relatively similar diets 🍗

Within-individual differences in ratios of both isotopes contributed far less to total niche variation in the urban than the nonurban coyote population, providing strong evidence for greater individual diet specialization in the urban population 🌇👤🍽️

Stable isotope δ13C and δ15N ratios in vibrissae from coyotes including mean ratios and standard errors across vibrissa segments for each individual urban coyote from San Francisco and nonurban coyote from Marin County, California, USA.

We found that individual urban coyotes had dietary niches almost 3x narrower than nonurban coyotes. Similarly, urban individuals had more consistent diets (smaller residual intraindividual variabilities). That means each urban coyote was consuming a smaller “menu” of food types.

Diagram depicting a coyote whisker being subsampled in 0.2mg segments from base to tip

Coyote whiskers grow gradually over several months, so we cut each whisker into small segments. Each segment gave us a isotopic “snapshot” of diet from a different point in time, letting us measure how consistent (or variable) an individual’s diet was ✂️🐾

Photo of coyote in SF overlooking the city skyline

Cities are very heterogeneous & food availability varies across neighborhoods. So, does urbanization create conditions favorable for individual specialization? We tested this hypothesis by comparing the diets of an urban pop of #coyotes in #SanFrancisco to a nonurban pop in Marin County.

The niche variation hypothesis posits that intrapopulation niche differentiation arises because generalist populations include relatively specialized individuals that use different resources. Diet variation among individuals is expected to increase with spatial variation in resource availability.

Urbanisation Facilitates Intrapopulation Dietary Niche Diversity in a Generalist Carnivore We compared stable isotope profiles of urban and nonurban coyote populations to test whether urbanisation fosters niche diversification among individuals. Urban coyotes had narrower dietary niches an...

📢I’m excited to share that my second dissertation chapter has now been published in Ecology Letters! We used stable isotope analysis to examine if urbanization influences individual dietary specialization 🧪 🧵

Read it here: doi.org/10.1111/ele.... #OpenAccess #UrbanEcology #UrbanWildlife

After a long posting break, it’s time for a big life update! 🎓 I graduated from @ucdavis.bsky.social in June, and today I'm starting as an NSF PRFB postdoc in Chris Schell’s lab at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social. Though SF coyotes will always have my heart, I'm pivoting from coyotes to raccoons 🦝

🌆🐾 The International Urban Wildlife Conference kicks off this weekend in Atlanta! We’re bringing together researchers and practitioners to explore the ecology and evolution of cities. Stay tuned for updates, session highlights, and behind-the-scenes glimpses of #IUWC2025! 🌇🦝🧬🌳

Ready to connect with urban ecologists and wildlife managers from around the world? The International Urban Wildlife Conference starts June 1st in Atlanta! 🦝🎡🌎

Workshops, field trips, plenaries & more: www.urban-wildlife.org/about

#IUWC2025 #UrbanWildlife #UrbanEcology #UrbanEvolution

The Coyotes of San Francisco

It was great being part of this longform @nytimes.com article about the San Francisco coyotes- with @talicaspi.bsky.social, Chris Schell, & @drpheebs.bsky.social . Loren Elliott's photos are incredible! Check it out.
🧪🌎

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...

The Coyotes of San Francisco

SF coyotes in the @nytimes.com! Feat. the most incredible photography by Loren Elliot (@lorenelliotphoto).

"After a long absence from the city, the animals have become ubiquitous again. Some residents find them delightful, but others view them with disdain."

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/u...

I'm just going to keep telling you to look at our zine because this shit is cute and maybe you'd want to make one for your city too 👀

Tali Caspi, University of California, Davis - How Cities Shape What Animals Eat - The Academic Minute What do animals eat when they live in urban spaces? Tali Caspi, urban ecologist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Davis, takes off the lid. Tali’s work on urban wildlife focuses on ...

I wrote a piece for The Academic Minute! Listen to learn more about our work on San Francisco #coyote diets 🎧

academicminute.org/tali-caspi-u...

#UrbanWildlife #UrbanEcology

"The wildlife Nextdoor: Socioeconomics and race predict social media carnivore reports" is out in Science of the Total Environment. @scrappynaturalist.bsky.social, Christopher Schell, and I looked at how people post about coyotes and black bears on Nextdoor.

doi.org/10.1016/j.sc...

🧵🐺🧬 An important point is getting lost in the discussion abt today's "deextinction" news: Colossal is not just claiming to have created something akin to a dire wolf. They claim they've made new/unpublished genetic discoveries that would rewrite our understanding of dire wolf evolution & anatomy 🧪

Happy to answer any questions about #IUWC2025 if you have them! See you in Atlanta!

We are excited to share that we have THREE incredible plenary speakers presenting at #IUWC2025 this year! They will give talks that fit with our theme of Urban Reflections: What We’ve Learned About Nature, Our Communities and Ourselves. Stay tuned as we announce our speakers over the next few days 👀

Bay Area peeps! If you like art and coyotes, come check out this collab in Bernal on April 5th! I'll be giving a talk on SF coyotes and artist Frances Berriman will be showing her beautiful paintings showcasing the city's most iconic carnivores 🎨🐺🐾

#UrbanEcology #UrbanWildlife #SciComm #EcoArt

Join SF Animal Care & Control & Rec & Park for a virtual coyote coexistence workshop on Thursday, 2/27 from 5:30-7PM. Keli Hendricks from @projectcoyote.bsky.social will present on best practices for coyote coexistence including hazing for coyotes. Register for the meeting here: tinyurl.com/ye25dvzc

Visual representation of common garden procedure.

Our common garden experiment with urban and forest great tits is out early view in Evolution! doi.org/10.1093/evol... @denisreale.bsky.social @annecharmantier.bsky.social

New Study Finds Urbanization and Human-driven Inequities Shape Coyote Behavior in Los Angeles Research unveils wealth, pollution, and population density are strong predictors of coyote movement.

thanks so much for the press release about our new urban coyote movement study, @calacademy.bsky.social !!

🧪🌎

www.calacademy.org/press/releas...

Thanks so much to Lila for this LA Times article about our new publication about social-ecological influences on coyote movement in Los Angeles! 🧪🌎🏙️

Check out the publication here:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Happy Valentine's Day from these Lovebirds! #bird #valentine #valentinesday #love #lovebird #photography #wildlife #wildlifephotography #bluemoonistic