Randi Minetor

They're not really moving into our areas, we're moving into theirs.

So we get more and more of these animals who are trying to figure out how they're going to continue to make a living with all of these houses and people and manicured lawns.

Thanks so much, Mike.

Thank you for having me.

Really, what's happening is the more that we expand our residential range and take over land that perhaps was farmland or was woods or some kind of open land that was hospitable to animals, the more we do that, the more we take over their land, the more these animals...

they're not really moving into our areas, we're moving into theirs.

So we get more and more of these animals who are trying to figure out how they're going to continue to make a living with all of these houses and people and manicured lawns in their environment.

And we are seeing more and more of those animals becoming bolder as they spend more time around humans.

Well, there are many different factors.

One is the animals learning the availability of food and other resources that are offered by fraternizing with humans.

So there are more opportunities for them to scavenge for the kinds of things they want to eat.

And some animals are omnivores, so they're willing to partake of whatever they happen to find on people's property.

So that's why we're seeing, in particular, bears

And I did a lot of work specifically for this book on the situation in Asheville, North Carolina, where you're right on the edge of Great Smoky Mountain National Park, which is where the bears live.

But they're also finding it's really easy to get a meal by walking into somebody's garage and, you know, going into their easily accessible trash bin.

to find whatever they may have thrown out that day.

Bears do this.

Coyotes do some of this.

We're finding that coyotes in particular have developed a taste for chicken.

So if you leave chicken bones in your trash there, you might find them going through it.