ATLANTA — University of Georgia researchers say about 80% of coyote interactions reported to state officials were sightings, while just 9% of calls reported a coyote threatening an animal or a person.

The study by the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources shows that not only are coyotes living in the metro Atlanta area, but they’re moving into deep urban centers across the country, too.

The researchers also track what they call human-wildlife conflict reports, including recording where different interactions occur, which they said helps them create maps to “predict what type of conflicts are most likely to be reported in that area.”

According to UGA and Wildlife Atlanta, coyotes have been in Georgia since at least the 1970s. However, the “rapid urbanization in Atlanta has increased interactions between humans, wildlife and domestic animals, exposing them to zoonotic diseases.”

Generally, and with urban interactions in mind, concerns over rabies aren’t completely unfounded, but Summer Fink, a doctoral student involved in the research, said fear over contracting rabies is very high due to people not normally being exposed to larger animals like coyotes.

The biggest cluster of dots shows the City of Atlanta had the most, in terms of where coyotes were going. The data itself comes from 50 coyotes tagged with GPS collars for the researchers to monitor their locations and behaviors over time. The study effort also set up dozens of trail cameras to capture the coyotes’ movements along with the GPS trackers.

UGA researchers say this is not by itself news. An interactive map from the research program shared by Wildlife Atlanta showed which parts of the metro coyotes have popped up. As far as where the coyotes spend their time, it depends on if it’s day or night.

The Warnell School said “early insights from footage show during daylight, Atlanta coyotes typically lie low in dense cover like forests or kudzu patches,” but at night, they start to explore more actively once human activity dies down, “often venturing into more developed areas of the city.”

Data from the den checks found that coyotes are living about the length of a football field away from a human building, on average, though the closest recorded den was 25 meters, or a basketball court away from a human building. Some man-made dens coyotes have moved into include culverts, discarded concrete and abandoned boats.