丛林狼正在悄悄地占领美国城市

ON A snowy trail that cuts around the trees is a neat line of paw prints which look as though they were made by a domestic dog. But Heidi Garbe, a research scientist with the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, can tell that they were made by a special kind of dog: Canis latrans, the coyote. Its footprint is more oval and its tracks more linear than those made by any household pet.

树周围的雪地上有一行清晰可见的爪印，看上去像是家养狗留下的。但是 Max McGraw野生动物基金会的研究科学家Heidi Garbe却能分辨出这是一种特别的狗的足迹——郊狼，即丛林狼。他们的爪印更椭圆，留下的踪迹比任何家养宠物都更直。

Around 2,000 coyotes are reckoned to live in Chicago and its suburbs, and it seems likely that the animal is thriving in many other built-up parts of the country. Once restricted to the south-western United States, it spread across the continent during the 20th century and more recently made its way into large metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, Boston and even New York. In 2010 a particularly intrepid specimen was caught in a parking lot in Tribeca, a trendy neighbourhood in Manhattan.

芝加哥市内和郊外发现了大约2000头丛林狼， 它们似乎也在美国其他建筑物多的城市里迅速繁衍。它们曾经在限制在美国的西南部生活，在20世纪在美洲大陆扩散开来，现在又进入大都市比如洛杉矶、波士顿甚至纽约。2010年，人们在翠贝卡 Tribeca的一个停车场抓到一只胆大的，这里可是曼哈顿附近一个热闹的街区啊。

In Chicago, the Cook County Coyote Project has been trying to understand how the species is conquering the metropolis. Part of the answer is that the coyote is clever, extremely adaptable and reproduces quickly. They are opportunistic eaters and will eagerly consume rabbits, rats, Canada geese, fruit, insects and family pets. They may also be filling an empty niche for a top predator that was once filled by wolves.

在芝加哥，库克丛林狼项目试图研究这个物种是如何侵占到大都市里来的。丛林狼的聪明是其中一个原因，他们具有极强的适应性和快速繁殖的能力。他们是机会主义食者，什么都吃，兔子、老鼠、加拿大雁、水果、昆虫还有宠物。他们可能填补了曾经是狼的顶级掠食者的空缺。

Scientists on the project are also trying to investigate how the urban animals differ from their rural cousins. For example, the city slickers have smaller territories, live at higher densities and live for longer than their rustic cousins. Such discoveries suggest that the coyote is probably thriving in American cities rather than clinging on at its edges.

项目的科学家还试图研究城市里的动物和它们在农村的表亲有何不同。比如，城市佬们地盘更小，居住密度更大，更长寿。这些发现表明丛林狼在城市里蓬勃发展，而不是处在生存的边缘。

In rural America the coyote remains strongly disliked—partly because it attacks livestock—and is often hunted or trapped. By contrast, urban America is developing quite an affection for the animal. In February a hunting contest in Modoc County, California, drew thousands of complaints to the authorities (it went ahead anyway)

在美国农村地区，丛林狼仍是非常地不受欢迎，往往被人们追捕或设陷阱捉住。因此相比之下，它们就更喜欢城市了。2月在加州莫多克郡举行了狩猎比赛引起几千人对当地政府的抗议，但仍没能阻止比赛。

Coyotes rarely attack humans. Between 1960 and 2006 there were only 159 reported cases of bites across North America. By comparison in 2012 there were 5,000 reported bites by domestic dogs in Cook County, which contains Chicago, alone. Nonetheless, in 2009 a young woman was killed by coyotes while hiking in Nova Scotia; scientists do not understand why. One suggestion is that the animals found in eastern America are a coyote-wolf hybrid that hunt more frequently in packs and can take down larger prey.

丛林狼几乎从不攻击人类。1960年到2006年期间，北美只报告了159例丛林狼咬人的案件。而仅在2012年，芝加哥所在的库克郡就报告了5000例家养狗咬人的案件。但是2009年一个年轻女子在新斯科舍爬山的时候被一只丛林狼杀害，科学家至今没有找到合理的解释。有一种猜测是美国东部有丛林狼和狼的杂交物种，它们经常集体捕猎，能够搞定大型的猎物。

In America’s cities the key to the coyote’s success is its virtual invisibility, and sightings of the animal during the recent mating season were unusual enough to have been the subject of news reports. This is no accident. Those who watch the beasts say that the coyote is more nocturnal when it lives in cities than when it is in the wild, which has undoubtedly helped its quiet conquest of parts of metropolitan America. Most people do not actually know they have coyotes living in their neighbourhood, says Ms Garbe, and conflicts only arise when an individual becomes a problem—perhaps having developed a taste for kitchen scraps or possibly Tiddles the cat. Once known as the “ghosts of the plains” coyotes are increasingly known as the “ghosts of the cities”. But as long as they stick to the shadows their future looks secure.

丛林狼在美国城市之所以能成功生存下来是因为它们擅长隐藏自己，我们能在丛林狼的交配季节在新闻报道中读到它们的信息已经是不寻常了。这不是偶然。观察过丛林狼的人会知道，它们在城市的时候会倾向于夜行，这点无疑帮助了它们悄悄地占领美国的大都市。根据 Garbe先生，大部分人甚至不知道他们周围有丛林狼，只有当它们中的个别成为问题，比如他们爱上吃剩饭或者宠物猫的时候，与人的矛盾才会激化。曾经被称为“平原幽灵”的丛林狼已经逐渐变成了“城市幽灵”，但只要他们保持低调，未来的生活还是很有安全的。