Urban Human–Coyote Conflicts: Assessing Friendliness as an Indicator of Coexistence

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Coyotes live in most major cities across North and Central America. As their habitat shrinks, human–coyote interactions increase, spurring debate about how to respond. Residents often fear coyotes and want extermination, but scientists argue they are a permanent fixture that play a vital ecosystem role and that eradicating them does not work and has negative impacts. Instead, ecologists argue that residents need to change their behavior to coexist with coyotes. Whether the public supports coexistence plans stems from public perceptions of coyotes, which are influenced by affective feelings, personal beliefs and experiences, and the media. Consequently, understanding how the media discusses these issues, whether they frame coyotes as friend or foe, and whether they cover coexistence is essential. To do this, we analyze coyote news coverage from 2000 to 2022 in three US cities: Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA; and Boston, MA. We find that the media uses friendly language to discuss coexistence and unfriendly language to justify eradication. Cities vary in the degree to which their coverage aligns with the scientific consensus; this likely reflects historical, cultural, and political views of coyotes. In Los Angeles, where coyote conflict is long-running and political, the coverage is the most unfriendly and is significantly more likely to include discussion of eradication; in Seattle and Boston, where coyotes have more recently become an issue, the coverage is far more likely to focus on coexistence. We argue that if governments want increased support for coexistence, there must be efforts to both account for media coverage in management plans and to educate the media on scientific consensus and the ecological implications of lethal management. ABSTRACT: Human–coyote sightings and interactions are becoming more frequent in urban areas across North and Central America. While many species have lost territory, the coyote range has expanded. Relatively recently, ecologists have coalesced around the idea that coexistence is the most promising avenue to reduce human–coyote conflict in urban areas. Despite this, calls for the eradication of coyotes continue. We apply and extend the theory of survival of the friendliest to evaluate how the media is framing coyotes and management strategies and what the implications of this framing might be. Through a content analysis of newspaper articles from three different urban areas in the US (Los Angeles, CA; Seattle, WA; and Boston, MA), from 2000 to 2022, we find that friendly language is used to promote coexistence, while unfriendly language (threat, hostile, unfriendly, and danger) is used to justify eradication. We also find considerable variation in the type of coverage and consistency with scientific consensus across cities, likely reflecting the cities’ varied histories and cultural understandings of the species. Given the media’s influence on the public’s views of coyotes and their support for management strategies, these findings suggest that the media plays a central role in shaping coyote–human relationships and management strategies.