Roll up your sleeves and become a citizen scientist at the next monthly coyote scat party at the National Park Service (NPS) office in Thousand Oaks on Saturday, August 5, 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Citizen scientists, alongside a park biologist, will learn to dissect locally collected coyote scat and identify its contents. The findings contribute to a study, now embarking on its second year, to understand the diet of urban coyotes.
The results will be compared to a similar study NPS conducted more than a decade ago. That study, which ran from May 2001 thru July 2003, found that Conejo Valley coyotes ate rabbits, pocket gophers, woodrats and mice, as well as native and fallen backyard fruit and, in very rare cases, a domestic cat. The current study repeats the Conejo Valley work and also includes some of L.A.’s most urban coyote areas.
“Citizen scientists will get to see first-hand what local coyotes are eating,” said Justin Brown, a NPS wildlife ecologist with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. “Their work will contribute to local science that could help reduce human-coyote conflicts.”
For more information and to RSVP: lacoyoteproject@gmail.com. The National Park Service office is located at 401 West Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360.
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) is the largest urban national park in the country, encompassing more than 150,000 acres of mountains and coastline in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. A unit of the National Park Service, it comprises a seamless network of local, state and federal parks interwoven with private lands and communities. As one of only five Mediterranean ecosystems in the world, SMMNRA preserves the rich biological diversity of more than 450 animal species and 26 distinct plant communities. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/samo.