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Description

The “Wildlife Services Coyote Management Project” aims to advance the understanding of the urban coyote population in the Long Beach area. In addition to using pre-existing data already gathered by local wildlife services, the team is working to assemble more information on the behavior and distribution of urban coyotes by means of scat analysis. Now in its second year, the project will augment its data through gene=c analysis of scat and building up the repertoire of animal skeletons through means of owl pellets to further study coyote diet. Owl pellets have been proven to be an effective means of finding more complete prey skeletons than coyote scat. Unlike the coyote, which chews its food before it swallows, the owl swallows its prey whole and expels the innutritious ma[er out in a pellet. This makes owl pellets an excellent source of nearly whole skeletons. Therefore, this portion of the Long Beach coyote project will focus on the methodology, results, and analysis of matching skeletons from owl pellets to bones found in coyote scat to be[er understand urban coyote diets. In addition to helping serve the ultimate goal of developing a coyote management plan for the City of Long Beach, the owl pellet analysis will also serve as a way of surveying the biodiversity on LMU’s campus and the surrounding area.

Publication Date

2018

Wildlife Services Coyote Management Project: Owl Pellet Dissection

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