This is

is Scientific Americans 60 Second Science.

I'm Jason Goldman.

Coyotes are now common residents of many large urban areas.

And while it doesn't happen all that often, coyotes are increasingly coming into conflict with people and with pets.

They're these mid-sized carnivores, which most people see them just as large carnivores.

University of Washington Tacoma, evolutionary biologist, Christopher Shell.

Being in, say, like a city like Los Angeles Angeles or Chicago or New York.

And it's just mind-boggling and awe-inspiring.

And in some instances for a lot of people

because they don't know much about the animals could be something that

generates fear because of misunderstandings.

Shell wants to understand how coyotes come to feel so comfortable around people, so he can come up with strategies for preventing it.

And he suspects it might have something to do with the parenting.

Our main goal was to see and test whether or not parents that have

extended experience of people and human disturbance get habituated to the point where they actually transfer that

habituation and that fearlessness to their offspring.

Shell and his team focused on eight coyote families living at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's

Predator Research Facility in Utah. Though captive, they live in large enclosures and lead mostly typical wild lives.

Typically the coyotes are fed in such a way as to minimize human contact.

But for this experiment the researchers did something different.

Instead of just walking away immediately, we fed them and then we just stared at them.

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