A big part of our project is sharing information with both the scientific community and the public. Project staff have given many talks and presentations to different audiences to raise awareness about ways of managing coyote conflict and share some of our preliminary research findings.
2024
January
Courtney and Abby presented at the Ohio Wildlife Management Conference in Columbus. Courtney discussed individual specialization in coyote diet and how it influences how coyotes interact with other species and with humans. Abby presented some preliminary findings on our diet analysis with stable isotopes and how we are using stable isotopes in a novel way - to try to discriminate natural prey from livestock.
March
Abby presented at the Ohio Woodland, Water, and Wildlife Conference in Mansfield, talking about conflicts with coyotes and how to avoid them. She gave another talk at the Oxford Library, in Oxford, OH, on a similar topic.
April
Courtney presented a poster about our findings on individual specialization in coyote diet in Ohio at OSU's College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) Research Forum and poster competition. The poster (shown below) won first place in the doctoral category!
Courtney also gave an oral presentation on the same topic at OSU's School of Environment and Natural Resources Student Research Symposium.
Abby was invited to give a talk to the Johnstown Sportsmen's Club in Johnstown, OH. She shared preliminary findings on population demographics and how these data will be used in future management efforts.
2023
January
Stan Gehrt, the head of the Ohio Coyote Research Project, was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Ohio Wildlife Management Conference in Columbus. He discussed how, in the face of global change and rapid urbanization, understanding how species like the coyote adapt to different environments is ever more important.
March
Courtney presented at OSU's School of Environment and Natural Resources Student Research Symposium, where she won an award for best oral presentation. She discussed findings from her previous work during her Masters, which was also in human-wildlife conflict and coexistence.
June
Courtney and Abby gave presentations for the Five Rivers MetroPark's EcoTalk series in Dayton. Abby discussed coyote ecology, ways that humans come into conflict with coyotes, and how to avoid conflicts. Courtney talked about the history of Ohio's carnivores and how different animals have disappeared, reappeared, or, in the case of coyotes, become abundant when they historically weren't.
July
Courtney and Abby gave presentations at the International Mammalogical Congress in Anchorage, AK. Both talks were focused on preliminary findings from our diet analysis with stable isotopes. Abby looked at coyote diets in different regions of Ohio, including areas that are predominantly-forested vs areas that are predominantly-agricultural. Courtney discussed how the coyotes in Ohio seem to all have specialist diet tendencies, where individuals eat a small range of food items compared to the total population diet and different individuals consume different foods.
September
Courtney and labmate, Grayson Cahal, attended the Ohio Farm Science Review in London, OH. We had a booth with information about the coyote research project and our research on coyote conflict with livestock. Courtney gave a presentation on coyote ecology and conflict at the Gwynne Conservation Area during the event.
November
Abby gave a great presentation at The Wildlife Society's national conference in Louisville, KY. She described our preliminary results on coyote population demographics in Ohio. We collected age, sex, reproduction, and mortality data from carcasses collected from all over Ohio to better understand what the population looks like. This will help us better understand if the population is stable or growing and inform future management.
December
Abby joined the Ohio State Extension's Educator Inservice for Pesticide Safety Education, giving a presentation on coyote conflict with livestock and how to deter coyotes from coming around livestock.
2022
December
Courtney presented at the Ohio Buckeye Shepherd Symposium in Wooster. She talked about our plans for the Ohio Coyote Research Project and how partnerships with livestock producers will be key to the project's success.