GRANBY TODAY
COYOTES CALLING Eastern coyote research captures imagination By Samantha Lewis Special to Today Magazine
A red fox (top) and an eastern coyote use the same path across a frozen pond in McLean Game Refuge, one day apart — photos taken by a motionsensor camera
BORN AND RAISED in the Farmington River Valley, surrounded by wildlife, I was always eager to explore the natural world. In the summer of 2018, the Trustees of the McLean Game Refuge offered me a place in their summer Forest Ranger internship. During that time, I learned about native plants, bird breeding and migration, stream dynamics, forest ecology, mammals, herpetology (reptiles and amphibians) and countless other topics. What really captivated me were the eastern coyotes. To see and hear these beautiful wolf-like creatures was thrilling, and I was determined to learn more about them. In the fall of 2020, I enrolled at UConn — in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment — to dedicate myself to a master’s degree researching eastern coyotes at the McLean Game Refuge. Under the guidance of professor Morty Ortega and McLean director Connor Hogan, I deployed 35 motion-sensor cameras around the game refuge, and I have been regularly monitoring the footage in 2021. Grueling as it has been, hiking miles in snow and mud, into ravines and through swamps, the results have been amazing. Our
cameras have captured an abundance of wildlife within the game refuge, including deer, bobcats, foxes, raccoons, opossums, wild turkeys, owls, hawks, squirrels and a variety of other animals. Working with Dr. Ortega at the McLean Game Refuge is especially exciting because it is an incredible and wild landscape that has been largely unstudied until recently. Our work focusing on eastern coyotes is the first research of its kind here, and we are beginning to bring into new focus the predator dynamics playing out in this 4,415-acre sanctuary. We are finding that competitors of the eastern coyote, like bobcats and red foxes, are actually coexisting with them in the same habitats. This was surprising because research elsewhere suggests that eastern coyotes will push out competition. We have also observed eastern coyotes moving in groups of four. Normally, eastern coyote offspring must leave their parents during the first year to search for their own mate and territory when resources are limited. What we believe we are witnessing here is evidence of great prey abundance at the Game Refuge and continued on page 14
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