Tam Valley Takes Look at Coyotes In Our Midst

Nearly a year ago, the Marin Human Society logged more than 60 reported sightings of a coyote across Southern Marin in the span of a month. Tonight, a Larkspur-based nonprofit focused is hosting an educational event on the coyotes in our midst.

"We know that Southern Marin historically has had coyote populations," said Camilla Fox, a wildlife consultant and the founder of Project Coyote. "What we are seeing is that they are recolonizing in the Bay Area."

The event will include the screening of a documentary, American Coyote: Still Wild At Heart, which addresses that subject. Nationwide, coyotes are filling vacant territories left when wolves were exterminated from much of their historic range, Fox said.

The event will also tackle coyote ecology and biology in urban and rural ecosystems, particularly the urban-suburban fringe that encompasses much of the Bay Area. Fox will also address human-coyote coexistence strategies, coyote conflict management and the value of community-based conservation approaches to living with coyotes and other urban wildlife.

Last fall, coyote sightings were reported at a host of locations in Southern Marin, including behind Best Buy in Marin City, the bicycle path near the Larkspur Hotel Mill Valley in Tam Valley and on Tennessee Valley Road off of Shoreline Highway.

Fox said that most wild coyotes fear humans, but they can become habituated to their presence and associate humans with food.

Project Coyote's mission is to promote educated coexistence between people, coyotes and other native carnivores, noting that the presence of a "problem" or habituated coyote that has lost its fear of people is often the product of inadvertent or intentional feeding.

The program starts at 7 p.m. at the Tam Valley Community Center at 203 Marin Ave.