My Albuquerque Journal colleague Win Quigley, intrigued by the coyotes in his Albuquerque Country Club neighborhood, near downtown, visited with the Bosque Environmental Monitoring Program’s Dan Shaw and wrote this:
[C]onsider the country club neighborhood, Shaw said. Kit Carson Park and the country club golf course abut the irrigation ditch, which abuts Tingley Beach, which abuts the river ecosystem. The park and the golf course are lush and regularly watered. Just across a little bit of concrete, old lawns are still watered, trees are planted, gardens are tended.
“This is prime real estate for wildlife,” Shaw said. To a porcupine or a coyote, this urban neighborhood is merely part of the range, an extension of the bosque itself. “You guys are putting welcome mats out to critters who don’t honor boundaries.”
Dan’s Eco-tracking: On the Trail of Habitat Change (Barbara Guth Worlds of Wonder Science Series for Young Readers)