Dr. Colleen Cassady St. Clair: Urban wildlife
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Conflicts between humans and wildlife are increasing as consequences of urbanization and habitat loss. Research is examining human-wildlife interactions like cars hitting animals and birds colliding with buildings, and pointing to some ways for humans and animals to coexist in cities more peacefully.
On November 8, 2024, SciLine interviewed: Dr. Colleen Cassady St. Clair, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta. See the footage and transcript from the interview below, or select ‘Contents’ on the left to skip to specific questions.
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Introduction
[0:00:20]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: My name is Colleen Cassady St. Clair. I’m a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta. I study the interaction of animal behavior and wildlife conservation and management with a focus on how humans and wildlife interact. How to address human-wildlife conflict and, if possible, replace it with human-wildlife coexistence.
Interview with SciLine
What trends do you see in urban human-wildlife interactions?
[0:00:51]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: Mostly what we see about human-wildlife interactions in cities is increases. People are having more interactions with urban wildlife for a couple of reasons. There are more and more people living in cities—about 80% across North America—and wildlife are learning to adapt to cities at the same time that people are replacing a decades- or centuries-old tendency to try to keep wildlife out of cities to inviting them into cities. So, cities are more hospitable now to wildlife than they’ve been before. Natural areas and different attitudes about wildlife make it possible for wildlife to live in cities alongside people.
What’s changing in terms of wildlife in cities?
[0:01:40]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: One of the things that’s changing in urban areas throughout North America is a return of carnivore species, sometimes just in the vicinity of cities but sometimes right in cities. These carnivores include bears, coyotes, sometimes cougars, bobcats in some dry cities, and these species are becoming more comfortable around people, losing their historic wariness, partly because the persecution of those species has declined in recent decades. The return of those species to the landscape is driving the changes to some of their prey species as well. Urban deer have become a problem in many western cities because they are seeking out the shelter afforded by people from their predators. Prey species tend to be more tolerant of people than predators are, so they can use humans as shields against their predators, causing problems with conflict. Human-deer conflict is occurring in many western cities, particularly through the interior of B.C. and some of the western states.
What trends have researchers seen in urban coyotes?
[0:02:58]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: One of the species that’s changing in its abundance and prevalence in cities is coyote. So, coyotes are now associated with conflict with people in pretty much every city in North America. Coyotes used to occur mainly in the southwest of the United States. Over centuries, they’ve expanded their range northward, eastward, westwards, now inhabiting pretty much every city in North America, and at the same time, they’ve become bolder. We’ve maintained a community reporting database over the last 15 years in Edmonton, where reports from people show that the number of the proportion of reports of bold coyotes is increasing and perceptions of people that are negative about coyotes tend to occur more often when those people are accompanied by pets or children that might be vulnerable to conflict with coyotes.
Is climate change affecting wildlife in cities?
[0:04:01]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: Climate change is affecting the nature and abundance of wildlife in cities in a few ways. First of all, some species are moving with changing climate envelopes to places where they didn’t occur before. As the climate warms, some species are moving northwards. The northward edge of their range is expanding. Here in Edmonton, where I live, we recently have had sightings of badgers, which are a grassland species formerly restricted to the southern part of the country. Another thing that’s happening with climate change is an increase in zoonotic diseases. Those are diseases that are shared by humans and wildlife that are sometimes favored by warmer climates. So, Lyme disease is an example of disease that’s carried by ticks and then spread to mice and deer and even people that’s changing its distribution with climate change. A third way that climate change is causing changes in urban wildlife is loss of species. A recent paper from the Urban Wildlife Information Network, a collaboration of many cities across the U.S. that uses remote cameras, showed that biodiversity is affected by urbanization. No surprise there—the more urban the environment, the fewer the mammal species that occur. But this loss of species with urbanization is occurring more steeply in cities that are also dry and arid. So, as more cities become dry with a more arid climate, biodiversity loss may increase.
What does research show about common drivers of human-wildlife conflict?
[0:05:48]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: Human-wildlife conflict is an increasing problem in cities, and it’s driven mainly by the provision that people afford of food and shelter for species that take advantage of those opportunities to live among people. Securing food and shelter from the urban exploiters is one of the best ways we can prevent human-wildlife conflict in urban areas, but it’s also a way that we can protect wildlife from some of the detrimental effects that come with eating human sources of food. Many studies have shown that those sources of food are not good for wildlife. They cause diseases, increase susceptibility to parasites, cause animals to become bolder and less fearful of people, more likely to get into conflict situations that causes their destruction and, all up, generates the kind of conflict we are trying to avoid in the first place.
Do you have any advice for people who encounter wildlife in cities?
[0:06:53]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: The best way to enjoy wildlife in cities is to do so from a distance. Try not to get too close to wildlife, contributing to their habituation, their loss of fear of people, that tends to go on to other things like food conditioning and conflict. A second thing is to really make sure that wildlife are not accessing food sources associated with people so that they do not become dependent on people and lose healthfulness because of the consumption of an unhealthy human source diet.
How can people report their observations of wildlife?
[0:07:36]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: There are several ways that people can help with this knowledge base of wildlife. A couple of main ways are to use the public reporting databases that are shared across the continent. eBird is one of those obviously devoted to birds. iNaturalist is another. Both of these use verification by experts, or at least an additional observer, to determine the likelihood and the accuracy of the detection of a wildlife species, say in a photo, and these go into a database that’s then used by researchers to study urban wildlife. Another way that people can report wildlife, sometimes, especially if it concerns conflict, is to phone the reporting app or use the reporting app available in their city for bylaw infractions, and dangers or problems of every sort, urban coyotes are often reported in this way, and this is one of the ways that urban wildlife managers can act proactively to solve conflict with urban coyotes before it escalates into situations that could injure people or require the lethal removal of animals.
What kinds of wildlife monitoring projects are going on in North American cities?
[0:08:53]
COLLEEN CASSADY ST. CLAIR: A really exciting time for wildlife monitoring in cities because of developments over the past maybe two decades. The first one is the invention of remote cameras and their widespread availability. So, remote cameras now can be in so many places at all times of the day, monitoring the animals that walk by. These remote cameras are being used by individual researchers, as well as big collaborations. A second tool is the online reporting databases that have been made available to members of the public. So, this is what supports citizen or community science, and these records far surpass what scientists could do without those members of the community. Some of these databases now have millions, even billions, of records that scientists are using to understand urban wildlife.
