Watching Out for Human Wildlife Conflicts and Vertebrate Pests in Southern California: The Wildlife Watch Program

Understanding residents’ perceptions and expectations surrounding wildlife species that some may consider “vertebrate pests” is an important element in developing socially acceptable, yet ecologically appropriate and scientifically sound, management strategies. Coyotes are a native wildlife species that are sometimes viewed as vertebrate pests. Human-coyote conflicts in southern California illustrate the importance of incorporating the social sciences, particularly knowledge of human behavior, communication and education, in a coyote management strategy. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has developed Wildlife Watch as a community-based approach to coyote management across eight cities in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Wildlife Watch (based on the Neighborhood Watch national crime prevention program) uses conservation-oriented principles to empower local communities, agencies, and residents to remove wildlife attractants and to exclude or deter coyotes from neighborhoods. Here, we outline the main components of Wildlife Watch and use case studies of successful programs to identify three common components: 1) multiple methods for residents to report human-coyote encounters and/or sightings (e.g., online, phone), 2) a clearly written policy that all incident reports receive an acknowledgement or response from the city, and 3) strong support from the city’s police department. An adaptive community-based program, like Wildlife Watch, offers a valuable toolkit to managers for navigating the diverse array of human perceptions, values, and attitudes regarding vertebrate pest species and human-wildlife conflicts