>foxes and badgers responded to the ravaging of their natural
>habitat by changes in farming practices in the '60s and '70s by colonizing
>city suburbs, especially older, more spacious suburbs with mature cover,
>including areas remarkably close to the center of London.

I've seen a fox in the back garden (yard) of a house in Croydon,
an older suburb of London. These gardens tend to have a lot of
shrubs and stuff near the low brick fences which separate the
houses, with much less lawn than you see in back yards here.
The fox had been there for some time, the business acquaintance
with whom I was staying knew I liked such things so made an
effort to show me the critter.

Then again, I've also seen a gray fox eating sugar water out of
a hummingbird feeder in a backyard in Portal, Arizona so it's
not a strictly English phenomena!

>yes, there have been reports of smaller domestic
>pets being recast as groceries, or at least (and inherently more likely)
>getting hurt when they tangle with foxes or badgers. Are our coyotes
>doing the same thing, at least to some extent? Any knowledgable Tweeters
>have hard data on this?

I saw a blurb on urban coyotes a few months ago on a local (PDX)
newscast. An elderly woman saw a coyote take her cat. She was...well,
"thrilled" isn't quite the right word...accepting? I think that fits.
A bit upset over the loss of her cat, I imagine, but by the time of
the interview, calm and made it clear she thought it was neat that
the coyote was around, and that she planned to get a new cat but
to keep it as an indoors cat.

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://www.xxxpdx.com/~dhogaza