Eastern Coyotes spotted on Long Island Nassau and suffolk counties.

One of two Eastern Coyotes photographed at a Nassau County site in August. (Stephane Perreault photo) The Long Island Coyote Study Group - comprised of representatives from Seatuck, Hofstra, Wild Dog Foundation, Greentree Foundation, Mianus Gorge Preserve, American Museum of Natural History, NYSDEC, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Kingsborough Community College and Fordham University – has identified several coyote sites on Long Island and Fishers Island. Given that coyotes have never lived on Long Island, we hope to learn important insights into their use of the Long Island landscape and their impacts on our ecological systems.  We need your help. The American Museum of Natural History has generously offered to do the laboratory analyses of the coyote scats we collect as long as we can raise $6,000 for their lab materials. We are well on our way to meeting the goal with $1,500 (25% of the target goal) already committed by LINO and Seatuck. We are reaching out to our colleagues in the Long Island conservation community for help in raising the money for the project.   Please help us meet our goal… no contribution is too small. click here for the donation page. We will be collecting coyote scats throughout the year for analyses to determine: Diet (and potential seasonal changes in diet); The number of individual coyotes at each site; The relatedness of coyotes at each site to the Bronx and Fishers Island populations (the latter will enable us to test the hypothesis that the Fishers Island - Great Gull Island - Plum Island archipelago is a conduit for recruitment of coyotes to eastern Long Island). Many thanks and best wishes to everyone, Mike Bottini #coyotes#fineartmagazine