COYOTES are a bird鈥檚 best friend, according to ecologists who have studied
how the animals keep smaller predators such as cats in check.
Kevin Crooks of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Michael
Soul茅 of The Wildlife Project in Hotchkiss, Colorado, surveyed enclaves
of land around San Diego. Areas visited by coyotes had fewer small predators,
such as raccoons, skunks and cats, but more native birds. Elsewhere, small
predators were more common and birds were rarer (Nature, vol 400, p
563).
鈥淭he absence of the large predator releases the smaller ones to become both
more active and more numerous,鈥� explains Soul茅.
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