Coyote now being tracked along the LA River

C-146 or her pack mate. NPS photo.

The National Park Service study of urban wildlife has added a female coyote, tagged C-146, along the Los Angeles River and in northeast LA. The coyote has been fitted with a GPS collar that returns the animal's location about eight times a day. The park service says she was captured and released Sept. 23. Of the two other urban coyotes previously tagged, C-145 is still being tracked in the Silver Lake area but the battery died on the collar worn by C-144, who was being followed west of downtown.

From the park service release on C-146:

“We’re very interested to learn how this animal is using the Los Angeles River,” said Justin Brown, biologist with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. “So far all of her recorded GPS locations have been confined to a two mile or so stretch on both sides of the river…”

Brown believes C-146 is from a pack of at least five individuals, three juveniles and two adults, that was captured on camera together in early September. As a juvenile, she will provide insight into how long the juveniles in this area stay with their parents and what routes young animals may take to disperse and find their own territories.

Although National Park Service researchers studied coyotes from 1996 to 2004 in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, they only began studying urban Los Angeles coyotes in May.

Before the GPS signal stopped coming in from C-144, her movements had just started getting interesting to the scientists. She roamed through Koreatown as far west as Hancock Park.

After spending most of her time in the Westlake neighborhood just west of downtown Los Angeles, with occasional forays across the 101 Freeway into Echo Park, C-144 suddenly left her home range and headed west. Her jaunt included traveling through Koreatown, East Hollywood, Larchmont, Windsor Square, and Hancock Park. She returned after just a few days, but the battery in her collar died shortly thereafter.

“It’s highly unusual for an alpha female to leave her home range like this,” said Justin Brown, a biologist with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. “We’d really like to understand why she left her territory, but unfortunately without a working collar we probably will never know.”

Although Brown is unsure why C-144 would move to the west, it’s possible it could have been related to the loss of a mate, a change in the availability of a food source, or an attempt to help pups establish their own territory once they disperse.

Because coyotes are difficult to re-capture and there are limited locations available to capture her in her home range, Brown is doubtful that he’ll be able to replace her collar. He hopes to capture one of her pack mates in the near future in order to better understand pack dynamics, such as whether the pack will stay together and what happens to young animals that need to find their own home range in heavily urbanized areas.