Darcey Gans

As landscapes across the globe are progressively being altered and reshaped by urban development, the success of wildlife management is increasingly dependent on the ability of managers to recognize how native species are impacted and interact with developed land. Canid species like coyotes (Canis latrans) and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) are highly adaptable and have a behavioral flexibility that has allowed them not only to thrive in urban areas, expanding their geographic range in the U.S.. However, while the presence and success of these canids in developed areas is widely recognized, how these animals use the landscape and are impacted by anthropogenic structures like roads and trails is not well understood. We investigated how coyotes and red fox movements are influenced by human-created paths across the urban to rural landscape gradient of the Twin Cities Metro area, and how space use varied with the availability of human-created paths. To measure habitat use, we fitted 4 red foxes, and 9 coyotes with GPS collars to track their weekly movements. The home range sizes were calculated using Kernel density estimation (KDE). Intersect points were found at locations were a target animal interacted with human-created paths. A resource selection function (RSF) was then applied to the data to interpret the selection and use patterns of the animals.