Numerous studies throughout the United States from Seattle to New York have demonstrated that cats comprise less than 5% of coyote diet. Why then do diet studies in Los Angeles reveal that cats make up nearly 20% of coyote diet? Residents in Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, reported that 72 cats were killed in 18 months, allegedly the victim of coyote attacks. A recent study conducted by Rebecca Davenport and colleagues from the Center for Urban Resistance (CURes) at Loyola Marymount University may offer the first glimpse into this anomaly. The study, "Spatiotemporal relationships of coyotes and free-ranging domestic cats as indicators of conflict in Culver City, California," was published in the journal PeerJ this month.

Davenport and team installed 20 motion-sensor cameras in Culver City parks, neighborhoods, and green spaces to monitor the presence of cats and coyotes for six months. Similar to other studies, the researchers found that coyotes prefer green spaces to urbanized and/or residential areas. However, cats did not display a preference for a particular habitat type. This result is quite surprising, as studies in Chicago and North Carolina found that cats prefer urban areas and directly avoid areas where coyotes are prevalent. Instead, cats in Culver City were present in the same green space fragments as coyotes. Additionally, cats in this Los Angeles suburb displayed more nocturnal behavior than is typical for urban cats. These unexpected results may explain why there have been such frequent cases of cat mortality in Culver City.