Center, Internet, Wildlife Damage Management
Human–Wildlife Interactions
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Do You Hear What I Hear? Human Perception of Coyote Group Size
Date of this Version
Fall 2017
Document Type
Article
Citation
Human–Wildlife Interactions (Fall 2017) 11(2): article 7
doi: 10.26077/ajxc-g248
Special topic: Cosmopolitan coyotes
Abstract
Recordings of 1 – 4 coyotes (Canis latrans) that were howling and yip-yapping were played to 427 participants who were asked to estimate the number of coyotes they perceived to hear. Participants were separated by gender (M or F), age group ( 35), resident location (urban, suburban, or rural), and occupation type (rancher/farmer or non-rancher/farmer). Differences between participants concerning gender, age group, resident location, and occupation type were not observed; however, treatment differences were observed. Participants were able to discern differences in the number of coyotes howling with the addition of each coyote; however, participants consistently overestimated the number of coyotes they heard by nearly 2-fold. Thus, it seems the general public has the perception that coyotes are more abundant than they actually are.