Our friend John Laundre who developed the LANDSCAPE OF FEAR paradigm that we have previously explored in this blog provided me with another fascinating and inciteful peer reviewed study examining how coyotes likely choose to hunt where their prey is most susceptible to capture....................even if that prey is not particularly abundant in that "VULNERABLE HABITAT".
Anotherwards, just because the food you like to capture and eat is plentiful in a particular locale, it might not be the best place for you to acquire your meal. If the animals that you are hunting are in a location where they can easily escape from you, then the risk/reward factor kicks in and you very likely will conclude that you have to expend too much energy to get your meal despite the fact that the "meal" seems to be all around you and available in abundance.
Instead, like the Coyote, you might decide to hunt where food is less available, but the food that is there is easier to capture.
John tested his hypothesis in the Mexican desert where Jackrabbits are the Coyotes principal foodstuff(voles a and various other small mammals are secondary choices)...........................Rabbits were abundant in the grassland environs where they could more easily see Coyotes...............and therefore have an easier time running away from capture........................................
.In shrubland environments, rabbits have a harder time seeing Coyotes. While there were fewer rabbits there, Coyotes more often hunted the smaller number of rabbits in the shrublands becasue they were easier to catch.
The LANDSCAPE OF FEAR both dictates where prey animals choose to forage and where predators choose to hunt...............................the end result is that both predator and prey come into some form of on-going equlibrium.....Read John's insightful research by cliking on tab below.
please post my link and send me your link and site name and i will post you accordingly..........happy to do this.
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