PHOENIX -  What would you do if you saw a coyote in your backyard, if you had a bobcat drinking out of your swimming pool, or if you had a woodpecker drumming on your home's siding? You can now get the right answers about what you should do, at a brand new section of the Arizona Game and Fish Department's Web site, azgfd.gov/urbanwildlife.

"We want to make it easier for Arizonans to find out about the animals that live in and around our cities," says Elissa Ostergaard, a Game and Fish urban wildlife specialist in the Tucson area. "These new Web pages will save people time by giving them one place to get all of the urban wildlife information they need."

"Animals don't recognize city boundaries," says Joe Yarchin, a Game and Fish urban wildlife specialist in the Phoenix/Mesa area. "Since we're developing more and more communities on the edges of our cities, we want to help educate people about how to peacefully coexist with the wildlife that's now close to those homes."

The Arizona Game and Fish Department already offers answers to urban wildlife questions via phone, at Game and Fish offices, at free classes in Tucson, and through community meetings in areas where there's a pressing urban wildlife problem. However, these new urban wildlife Web pages will make it possible to reach a larger audience right away, and customers won't have to leave their homes or look up a phone number to get the information they want.

"In creating these new Web pages, we carefully considered what topics interested people in Arizona the most," says Yarchin.

New Web sections include answers to frequently asked urban wildlife questions, methods for identifying and dealing with certain species that might show up at your home, and tips on what to do if you find an injured or orphaned animal. For example, a homeowner dealing with urban coyotes could find out basic information about coyotes, learn how to discourage the animals from coming onto his or her property, figure out how to protect his or her pets, and more.

"One basic message of the Web section is that when wild animals come into neighborhoods, they are usually looking for food, water or shelter," says Ostergaard. "If you make it hard for the animals to find these things, they will probably stop showing up."

The new urban wildlife Web section is paid for with money from the Arizona Game and Fish Department Heritage Fund. More than a decade ago, Arizonans overwhelmingly approved the creation of the fund, which gives money from lottery ticket sales to conservation efforts like protecting endangered species, acquiring habitat for the benefit of sensitive species, and educating children about wildlife.