Ten days ago, I had the good fortune while coyote watching to see an American Barn Owl in Central Park. It perched in a tree and after about five minutes swooped down and caught a rat. It then few southwest and out of sight.
It was the first time I had seen it, but other coyote watchers had been seeing it about once a month in the spring.
Using a thermal monocular at night in the park has opened up a window into the park’s nocutural wildlife. While it has let me discover the habits of our Coyotes and watch a Southern Flying Squirrel, it has also shown me some of the problems in the park. The worst is how bad the park’s trash management has become. I see scores of raccoons and rats around all of the park’s trash cans and restaurants. Not only has led to an overpopulation of rats and raccoons, but could also habituate the park’s coyotes to human food. This could cause them to become aggressive toward humans.
Let’s help keep our wildlife, wild and manage the park’s trash properly.
There are a number of factors involved:
When Douglas Blonsky was President of Central Park, an effective progress for managing trash in the park was put into place to minimize consumption by Brown Rats and Raccoons. The park removed some trash cans in the Ramble and the North Woods, and developed a system of trash collection, that aggregated garbage and ensured that it was collected promptly rather than letting it sit overnight.
This system, while it could have been improved upon, allowed Chipmunks to make comeback in the north woods. Unfortunately, in other areas of the park, Brown Rats and Gray Squirrels still dominate and prevent the Chipmunks from reestablishing themselves.
Douglas Blonsky’s replacement, Betsy Smith was hired primarily to focus on fund raising in 2018. Betsy Smith has done a fantastic job raising funds for important captial projects, such as the refurbishment of Chess and Checkers and the Conservatory Garden, the replacement of the Lasker Rink/Pool with the fabulous Davis Center, and the soon to be completed North Meadow Recreation Center and Southern Grand Army Plaza renovations. However, basic operations of the park have declined since Douglas Blonsky’s departure. Some of this was caused by a reduction in city funding by Bill de Blasio, put I suspect it is also a change in focus from by the President and the Board to larger projects, ignoring day-to-day operations.
I would hope that once this round of capital projects is completed, the conservancy would focus on providing long term funding for staff positions and smaller projects. Universities have endowed professorships, and orchestras endowed performers. Isn’t it time to start raising funds to endow arborists, gardeners, a naturalist, and multiple maintenance positions?
Basic maintenance is lacking and smaller less glamourous projects that would have a huge impact on the park are being neglected. It seems as though if it can’t have a brass plaque attached to it, the project doesn’t get done. Sidewalks, fence repairs, signage, hand railings (a ramp with railings was recently installed in Shakespeare Garden, but railings which would have helped the majority of the park’s older patrons were not installed on the stairs going up to Belvedere Castle), wheelchair cutouts and ramps (only two steps prevent wheelchair users from viewing the wonderful ceiling tiles of the Bethesda Fountain arcade), and bathroom renovations all seem to be forgotten since they aren’t donor friendly.
But basic trash management and rodent control might be the worst failure of the current management team. This decline has allowed the park to become overrun with Brown Rats and Raccoons. There is also a serious risk our Eastern Coyotes could also become habituated to human food and loose their fear of humans.
Trash Cans
The park’s trash cans simply need to be replaced with more modern trash receptacles that prevent animals from accessing the trash and there need to be enough of them to prevent trash from overflowing on busy days. Walking through the park at night and you’ll see families of raccoons jumping in and out of the trash cans. The raccoons often pull out food containers, spilling the food and then feeding nearby rats. The receptacles don’t need to be “bear proof”, just raccoon and rat proof.
In addition to not being animal proof many of the current trashcans are in poor condition. Here is a picture of two without lids.
Depots and Collection Timing
The park’s trash is collected by employees driving electric carts and consolidated at depots along the drives. Originally, this was supposed to be timed, so trash wasn’t left unattended only briefly. But today, if you visit these depots in the early hours of the evening you’ll see raccoons ripping open trash bags, with rats cleaning up the scraps.
The problem is made worse by the recycling trash which often gets left at the depots. Because park patrons often put food waste or liquids in the can/bottle trash cans this trash attracts animals but is treated as though it contains only recyclables. This trash is often left for a longer period, which exacerbates the problem.
Liquids (and odors) leak out of the trash, but the depots are not cleaned, nor are they hosed down after the trash is collected. Some of the depots smell so bad, you can smell them from a block away. Walk into the park from Grand Army Plaza at 59th and Fifth Avenue and after you pass the Zoo and before you arrive at the Mall, you’ll be greeted by the worst smell you may ever encounter. That what greets NYC tourists daily.
Leaving the trash and recyclables out in the open just isn’t working. The trash needs to be stored in containers that are animal proof and the sites need to be hosed down after the trash is collected. The city is piloting large dumpsters to collect trash in city neighborhoods, and these might be a perfect fit for Central Park.
The Mount
The Mount, also known as the Compost Heap, has three large tractor trailer sized dumpsters where recycling is stored. (There are also two additional dumpsters on the bypass road that goes across the park around 103rd Street.)
The Mount which used to be free of debris have been left a complete mess by the contractors who worked on the Davis Center and Conservatory Garden. (This seams to be par for the course this season. In Shakespeare Garden, to meet an opening deadline, the lattice work for the new rustic fences was left unfinished and the lumber thrown behind some shrubs.) A cynic would say that it shows the lingering racism and classism of the Conservancy’s staff and board, that an acre of the park “uptown” has been left in such disrepair. Or it simply is incompetence. Either way, the site needs to be restored to a natural state and a better solution found for the dumpsters.
Every evening Brown Rats and Raccoons feed on the garbage in the dumpsters and often the coyotes come by at some point in the night to fed on the Brown Rats. The dumpsters would be fine if they contained only recyclable materials, but those bags often have mixed trash. Just like with the transfer stations, rodent proof dumpsters are needed to replace the tractor trailer sized dumpsters.
I’m including some pictures below, not only of the dumpsters, but of the leftover construciton materials at The Mount. The area truly is an embarrassment. The remaining construction material included a mountain of large boulders left over from the restoration of the stream from The Loch to The Meer.
Restaurants
Most of the park’s restaurants are not complying with NYC Health Department regulations requiring the use of lidded, rigid containers for all trash, including food waste. As a result, there is a feeding frenzy at most of the restaurants nightly.
Some of the restaurants, simply don’t have enough containers. This is the case with the Le Pain Quotidian at Mineral Springs (just north of Sheep Meadow). NYC law requires restaurants to have enough containers to handle 72 hours worth of waste.
Walk by the restaurant at night and you’ll see a collection of Raccoons and Brown Rats feasting on the garbage. One one night I saw over 20 Brown Rats and three Raccoons eating the trash.
At the Loeb Boathouse the situation is much worse. Here you have open dumpsters, filled with trash. Whole families of raccoons and armies of Brown Rats descend on the open dumpsters each night.
It’s a shame that the area north of the Loeb Boathouse continues to be just a parking lot filled with cars, dumpsters and shipping containers. With car traffic in the park having been banned years ago, why hasn’t this being redesigned? There must be a way to discreetly hide the trash and provide a more attractive way to store materials for the restaurant and the special Achilles’ Bikes. (The same goes for the Tavern on the Green’s unused parking lot, which could be reclaimed and turned into a garden, with a nice round driveway for taxis.)
Park Patrons Feeding Animals
Unfortunately park patrons are feeding animals either by littering or intentionally. Littering will always be a problem in a public park.
However, the intentional feeding of animals is a serious problem.
The feeding of birds, squirrels, and raccoons by park patrons has seriously increased the population of non-native birds, squirrels, and raccoons in the park, but also the rat population. This displaces native bird species and native animals such as chipmunks.
There are individuals feeding birds and raccoons regularly, and at these areas at night you will see scores of rats, and can find large established burrows of the rodents. The over population of raccoons has also led to two disease outbreaks in the Central Park population, both rabies and distemper.
Sadly, when the Park’s Department proposed restricting the feeding of animals in city parks, there was a public outcry, and new regulations were not approved. So, what I consider to be littering is still allowed by regulations. It’s sad to see how many people interact with wildlife as though the animals are their outdoor pets, rather than wild creatures.
For the coyotes, an individual who leaves high quality fish and meat out for raccoons, has meant that they visit a feeding location nightly. But also about 30 Brown Rats visit the same spot nightly! And this spot is right next to a children’s playground.
It’s time to prohibit the feeding of wildlife in city parks. The people doing it are doing it for their own enjoyment and not for the welfare of the animals. There needs to be a clear boundary between humans and wildlife.
In addition to banning the feeding of wildlife, I’ve always believed New York City Parks should also adopt the Canadian National Park’ s language prohibiting harassment of animals in for NYC park regulations. Their guidelines say, “It is against the law to touch, entice, disturb or otherwise harass any wild animals big or small.” I especially like the use of the word entice, as it would restrict the use of audio playback or the feeding of animals using bread or nuts to bring them closer.
Rodent Control
Even with the best management of waste disposal, there will always be some rats. While the Conservancy occasionally uses rodenticides, it does so on a very limited basis to protect the rodent predators in the park, such as Red-tailed Hawks. While this was the correct approach a decade ago, two new and effective methods of controlling rat populations have recently become available, CO2 and rodent contraceptive bait, and should be concidered.
The use of carbon dioxide as a method of fumigation for burrow systems, either by using dry ice or devices such as the IGI CO2 Liphatech, can be very effective at killing brown rats, without the risks of secondary poisoning of other animals. This method has been successfully used in smaller parks in Manhattan, including Washington Square Park and Tompkins Square Park.
Rodent contraceptive bait is being experimented with in NYC, and is available in both a liquid and solid form. The solid form is being used quite effectively in Bryant Park. The Conservancy should be encouraged to pilot the use of these baits, especially in infested areas, such as the shore of the Pond.
Moving Forward
The health code violations are the easiest to address. I’m going to start photographing the violations when I see them and report them to the health department. I would encourage everyone else to do the same. If you’re walking your dog at night, take a picture and make a complaint.
The Park’s Department also has a department that manages concessions and I’ll be writing a letter of complaint and copying the health department.
Pressuring the Conservancy to revised their trash collection and rodent control procedures will be much harder. I’m still trying to figure out how to influence them. Email me with any suggestions!
Lastly, I’m not sure how to mobilize naturalists to influence park regulations. The “animal lovers” who feed wildlife are a strong lobby. Fixing this issue might not be possible politically. But it’s time to give the Urban Park Rangers and P.E.P. (Park’s Enforcement Patrol) regulations that let them crack down on habitual feeders of animals, who bring so much food into the park that they end up feeding more than a few bids or squirrels but an army of rodents.
In general, I’ve tried to respect the coyotes privacy, and not publish any information about their locations or where to find them. However, two articles have made public that they’ve been using the Delacorte Theater, one in Smithsonian Magazine and today’s article in the New York Times. So, I’m comfortable sharing some information, now that the “cat’s out of the bag” for this one location.
(In the NYT article, Patrick Willingham is quoted as saying, “A friend sent me a picture from Smithsonian Magazine in late June by two photographers who had captured a pair of coyotes sunbathing in the new Delacorte’s bleachers.” The picture was taken at night, so “resting by moonlight” might have been a better description.)
The coyotes patrol the park at night but also rest in safe spaces free of humans and dogs. These refuges exist all throughout the park. I’ve found eight of them, but I’m sure there are more. They are “rest stops” as they explore the park at night.
This winter and spring, the coyotes most popular rest stop was the construction site of the Delacorte Theater. It was a huge area containing Shakespeare Garden, which was then closed to build an ADA compliant walkway, the theater, a large temporary construction area north of the theater, and is adjacent to Turtle Pond, which is fenced off at night. It was a safe place for them. Except for security guards (who rarely patrolled the construction site), it was a free of anything that could disturb them.
It was also a great spot to explore from and return to in case there was “trouble”. Before the park closes at 1am, the coyotes must deal with humans and dogs getting in their way. So, they also used the Delacorte as a “home base”, if their early evening explorations encountered too many people or dogs.
Now that the construction has been completed and rehearsals have started for the August production of Twelfth Night, the coyotes are avoiding the theater from what I can see. They are very shy. They used the theater when it was dark, and now stage lights keep the theater lit all night. The coyotes have plenty of other places to hang out in the park, and they’ll be just fine giving up their playground to the Public Theater for a few weeks!
There is a chance they might still be visiting after the park is closed at 1am. But there is almost no chance, they’ll join a performance onstage! (Although, they did join a performance of the New York Philharmonic.)
So don’t expect to see them if you are lucky enough to get tickets to Twelfth Night.
Although folks had been watching the coyotes in the theater this winter, (and in prior years when the park only had a single coyote,) I only started watching them in April. I had purchased a thermal monocular, and was finally able to track the coyotes at night.
My first encounter with them at the Delacorte was in early April.
This is a thermal image of them. Black is heat, and white is cold not snow. Here they are exploring the theater with most of the seats still to be installed.
While I got to see them on and off in the theater during April, it was difficult to photograph them. It is usually pitch black in the theater at night.
In May, I was able to take some pictures of them onstage. They both took a nap on top of a load of plywood.
The coyotes would also use a fenced in construction area just north of the theater at night to rest and relax. Below are photographs from May.
They continued to roam through the theater seats and play onstage. But by mid-May the trees had leafed out and it was becoming hard to see much of the theater from the terrace of Belvedere Castle.
In June and early July, much of the same behavior continued. A new highlight was watching one of them eat a Brown Rat on a lawn just north of the theater.
A firefly photobombs one of the coyotes in July.
The Public has a great cast for Twelfth Nigh to inaugurate the renovated theater this August. They should have a wonderful, if too brief of a season. New York City welcomes free theater back to Central Park.
However, I suspect the coyotes will be happy to celebrate the final curtain call, so they can return to using one of their safe havens during the theater’s off season. This pair of coyotes has already been giving some great performances in and around the theater this year! Here are some of them…
The coyote we had fifteen years ago, was very comfortable on the ice of both The Pool and The Pond, and there were many sightings of our current coyotes using the ice on The Lake and Turtle Pond this last winter. David Lei took a wonderful shot of a coyote on the Turtle Pond ice and included it in an article co-written with Jacqueline Emery for Smithsonian Magazine.
But I wasn’t expecting the coyotes to swim or walk in shallow water, but they do it all the time. I’m not sure why I didn’t think they would swim, as there are many breeds of domestic dog that love swimming. It turns out the park’s raccoons swim as well. I guess that’s why we don’t have any nesting ducks on the island of Turtle Pond.
The coyotes have also used one of the park’s islands to sleep on during the day. On the two occasions, I’ve seen them use an island to sleep on during the day. I was only able to hear some splashes as they left the island. Sadly, it’s almost impossible to photograph all of their behaviors. They really know how to stay out of sight and love to stay in the shadows.
I’ve only been able to take one thermal movie and extract some stills of the coyotes swimming. There isn’t snow in the image below, black is heat, and white is cold.
In this first photo a coyote swims to one of the park’s island, with a freshly caught Brown Rat in its mouth, with four ducks and geese to the right.
The wet coyote reaches one of the park’s islands.
The coyote shakes off the water on its coat.
Video of the coyote swimming to an island, eating a Brown Rat and exploring the island.
A coyote on one of the park’s islands. They will also walk in shallow water to get around dense vegetation.
I’ve spent the last three months observing Central Park’s first pair of Eastern Coyotes. It has been a wonderful experience. While coyotes are relatively new to Manhattan, they’re been living and breeding in the Bronx and Westchester for decades. Coyotes gradually made their way east of the Mississippi River over the last 100 years. Coyotes now live in most North America’s cities and have adapted well to urban and suburban life.
In Manhattan, we’re seeing the first few “pioneer” coyotes, but we should expect to have more as time progresses. I suspect we’ll have breeding coyotes in Manhattan by the end of the decade.
While watching the coyotes in May, I had a nice conversation with a person who has an apartment on Fifth Avenue but also a house in Greenwich. He asked me what I was doing, and I said I was watching a pair of coyotes. We talked about how some folks fear them and he said something that stuck with me. He said “In Greenwich when the coyotes first came, the town was in a panic. But soon folks simply learned to manage their garbage and keep their pets inside at night, so now they’re just part of everyday life and no one worries about them.”
In Manhattan, folks are often still in the panic stage. Public policy has improved, and people are starting to know they’re here, but the public is often still frightened by them unnecessarily. Although in Central Park, I now run into many people who are excited to share their own sightings.
While I got to know a coyote about fifteen years ago, until this April, the sightings I’ve had over the last few years had been infrequent. I saw the current male a few times on the North Meadow while watching the Snowy Owl in 2021. Since then, each year in the late winter and early spring when he’s sleeping on a ledge during the day, I’ve been able to watch him sleep and then wake up at dusk. However, I was never able to track of him after he ventured out of his daytime resting spot.
Last year, while watching a pair of Long-eared Owl, I got to see that the single coyote had become a pair. I had some great but very brief looks at them in the northern end of the park.
Except when the male coyote was sleeping, the sightings would be best called “glimpses”, and I only heard the coyotes howl once. This spring, aided by newly purchased thermal monocular, I have been able to spend many nights watching them and getting to know the pair. A handful of people had already been studying them for a few years, so I was a bit late to the party, but I quickly came up to speed.
Despite their reputation as being dangerous, coyotes generally do their best to stay under the radar in urban areas. This is the case with the pair of coyotes living in Central Park. They time their travels to avoid people and dogs, and they do their best to find areas of the park free of dogs and humans to sleep and relax during the day. To my knowledge there have been no reports of aggressive behavior towards humans or dogs by any coyote in Central Park, while there have been numerous dog attacks in Central Park. Park patrons and their pets are much more likely to be attacked by a domestic dog, than a coyote.
Urban coyotes can become aggressive if they lose their fear of humans, which is further worsened by people intentionally or unintentionally feeding coyotes. This could easily become an issue in Central Park due to the mismanagement of refuse by the restaurant concessions and the Conservancy, as well as the misguided feeding of wildlife, raccoons in particular. I write about this in a future post.
So, while my blog posts have been few and far between these last few months, I’ve been busy watching a fascinating pair of coyotes. The coyotes do their best to stay under the radar. They do their best to hide in plain sight and this pair unlike most coyotes are almost exclusively nocturnal. They’ve adapted to living in a crowded park. This flexibility is so much fun to study, just as I did with Red-tailed Hawks in small parks, such as Washington Square Park or Tompkins Square Park.
Over twenty years, I’ve had lots of great experiences watching a variety of species in Central Park at night including Bats (Eastern Red, Big Brown, Siver-haired and Tri-colored) and Owls (Eastern Screech, Barred, Barn, Long-eared, Great Horned, Snowy and a feral Eurasian Eagle-Owl).
(I tried to get into moths with Marie Winn and her friends, but it never captivated me. I think I’m too much of a behaviorist, and not enough of a taxonomist to enjoy them.)
Observing these coyotes has been like observing owls. As with owls, it is more involved than simply observing a species and how it is adapting to an urban environment. There are complications due to the news media and individuals exploiting the animals, lots of false rumors, incorrect interpretations of their behavior, and areas of public policy that need improvement.
Earlier this year there was a possibility the pair would have pups. They were seen copulating, but in May it was clear they weren’t going to have offspring this year. However, they might in later years, so I’m going to be cautious about what details I report and what I don’t. So, I’ll be writing about what they do, and will often leave out where and when they’re doing it.
So, I’m going to start doing weekly posts covering a range of coyote topics. Some will be lighthearted, and some will be more serious. I have a lots to share after watching the coyotes for three months.
I was thrilled to get my third species of squirrel for Central Park on Friday evening. Andrew Eastwick had reported seeing a Southern Flying Squirrel on Thursday evening, and I was fortunate to meet up with him on Friday to search for the squirrel again. After a few false starts, we found it again.
It ended up being in one of the darkest locations possible, so I was able to get some not so perfect I.D. shots. We kept track of it for about ten or fifteen minutes before we lost track of it. Sadly due to the darkness we didn’t get to see it glide.
When we had an American Red Squirrel years ago, it became a tourist attractions and some “do gooders” decided it was a good idea to feed it and bring it water. While it might have seemed to be a good idea, the daily delivery of peanuts only increased the tensions between the American Red Squirrel and the numerous Eastern Gray Squirrels in the park. So, I’ll give this nocturnal squirrel its privacy and not disclose its location.
Update: The following evening I was able to capture video of the squirrel eating, which has been added to this post.
