watch out for the roadrunner
26
The Eastern Coyote is bigger than the Western Coyote - and looks different. They crossed with both Wolfs and Dogs.
And they Eastern Coyote does set traps, just as Shadar describes, for his Western Coyotes for dogs. Kills and eats them .
One will get a dog to chase him. Once the dog runs after it, an ambush of several coyotes is waiting.
And yes, they are pretty and clever. As long as you keep your cats and dogs inside, they are enjoyable animals
25
I would suggest that one thing that may help explain coyotes' successful expansion is their resemblance to dogs. Inasmuch as people generally like dogs, that mitigates a coyote's appearance of "otherness." That combined with he fact that coyotes don't attack humans makes them relatively acceptable. In addition, their howling makes them a fairly safe, resonant symbol of the natural world, one which, I expect, evokes a sense of solidarity, perhaps even nostalgia, for humanity's past.
An enjoyable little read is "God's Dog: Conversations With Coyote", by Webster Kitchell.
24
What the article fails to mention is the impact of coyotes on domestic animals, namely family pets. As they have expanded their range, coyotes have continued to prey upon cats and dogs. Sadly, most pet owners are unaware of the threat of coyote predation. I should know-I was one of them-and our dog was killed in our backyard one Super Bowl Sunday. There has been a paradigm shift in pet ownership in the last decade or so: most pet owners don't understand that they can no longer let their pets go outside unattended and assume their pets will be safe. Local animal control officers and state departments of environmental protection do not do an effective job of educating all pet ownerships of the threat that coyotes pose.
17
Out here in the Sonoran Desert, I've seen countless coyotes, both in town and in the desert. After 20+ years, it's still a thrill to see them, or to hear them howling and yipping at night. My work takes me into the desert, and I hike for pleasure in the mountains. Whether there or in town, I am far warier of possible run-ins with the wrong humans, than I am about encounters with coyotes, bobcats, rattlesnakes, and all the rest.
50
My experience of coyotes in San Diego is that they were relatively unafraid of humans. I remember having one walk by a couple of feet away one night on the plaza of the Salk Institute and another time one stood for several seconds on the bike path out of UCSD's Mesa apartments, whose canyons were very much alive at night. I think they have this careful consideration of the the threat a particular human represents in common with other species that have done well everywhere in the U.S., with the grey squirrel and crow as other examples.
20
They aren’t very good eating.
6
My impression is that the species that are flourishing in modern America -- coyotes, crows, black bears, etc. -- tend to be intelligent and adaptable animals that are able to live happily around humans without being much of a danger to humans. In contrast, species that are dangerous to humans, such as grizzly bears, were long ago wiped out, while mountain lions aren't happy around people.
16
In the early 60s we had a family friend who was a professional trapper. Back then he killed coyotes by attracting them to meat laced with cyanide. We can't do that any more.
3
The 'purpose' of evolution fit natural selection is to leave the most best adapted offspring over the most space and for the most time.
For millions of years South America was an island continent with big predatory birds and marsupial predators. Placental predators went south when Central America moved and rose to join the Americas. Among them the cougar went south and the opposum came north.
9
I remember when Rick Perry shot one while out on a morning jog. Because the best way to revalidate your man card is to carry a .380 Ruger, loaded with hollow-point bullets, in the waistband of your running shorts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR201004...
23
yeah haha... i remember that... he said he was defending his dog
who goes jogging (as governor no less) with a gun in your shorts??
good thing he’s now in charge of our nuclear weapons program ....
35
"Dr. Kays thinks wolf genes that made some coyotes bigger (but not a separate, “fear-mongering hype” species some call a coywolf, he points out) likely allowed them to expand more rapidly into the Northeast"
How quickly we forget! The legendary Custer Wolf - "The cruelest, most sagacious, and most successful animal outlaw";another author called him "the master criminal of the animal world"
If you recall who helped the Custer Wolf escape a thousand traps laid for him by the best hunters of that time - two coyotes. Yes! Coyotes! Those wily canids! It is not full moon yet but a Howl for the Coyotes!
7
In Utah, the State Legislature has imposed a fifty dollar a head bounty on dead coyotes. This gives the potshot shooting crowd an economic incentive to shot at anything that walks on four legs and looks like a coyote, including wolves, foxes and dogs. The rationale for this absurd coyote bounty: these carnivores supposedly eat too many deer and elk, sheep and cattle.
But the saddest thing about this brutal program is that it is easy to mistake a Wolf for a coyote. This from the Salt Lake Tribune:
“The [bounty] program came under scrutiny after a wolf protected under the Endangered Species Act was shot and killed when a hunter in southern Utah mistook her for a coyote. The long-ranging 3-year-old female, dubbed Echo, had captured the attention of wildlife advocates across the country because she was the first wolf seen near the Grand Canyon in seven decades.”
45
I grew up with coyotes on our family farm up here in northern Alberta and am now back on that farm at home and in bliss. The sound of coyotes at night, yipping, howling, laughing, alone or in tandem with others, is a balm to my soul after a lifetime of working and living in the city.
Wild, wily, and free the coyote is an example of the hardiness and adaptability we all will need to emulate if we are to survive the changing environment we helped to create. I love that they have chutzpah as wild animals to roam into the hearts of cities, scavenging and cleaning up the detritus of civilized living - cats, rats, mice, garbage, and the occasional yappy little lap dogs. Out here the scat of the coyote after wind and weather has its way, consists only of hair. All else is consumed and used. Would that we were so efficient.
Coyotes cannot be called invasive. They're only doing what come naturally and history will record they do if far better than we do. They will survive long after we're done here.
59
I am actually comforted when I see coyotes in Chicago (which I have several times). It's comforting that there are wild animals who are able to survive in spite of us. And I think the spread of the species is fascinating, and it is very cool that we are able to track it and watch it in real time.
46
Have lived around coyotes in the west and have always enjoyed them. (I wish we had them here in Hawaii as we have a run-away wild cat problem as well as the mis-introduced mongoose - both of which have decimated the wild bird population. Plus, I'd love to hear them howl at night!) As for them being an "invasive species", I don't think so. Their expansion is natural and is a reflection of the world they have to survive in.
26
I live on the Olympic Peninsula of WA state and we have coyotes all over the place. My three Labs interact with them frequently. Sometimes its play and sometimes it's teaching.
After my youngest male Lab chased a coyote puppy last summer, the parents set a trap the very next morning. One stood out of the woods to get my young dog to chase him, and just as he chased it into the woods, that coyote and its mate jumped him to teach him a lesson about chasing puppies. My other two Labs raced over to bail him out of his predicament, and other than a few minor scrapes and nips, all on the young Lab, the dogs were fine. Lesson taught and learned. No chasing yotes into the woods now.
I find that if you encounter the same coyotes on a frequent basis, they are just as easy to distinguish as individuals as are dogs.
My only gripe is when the coyotes gather for a sing fest in the woods at the foot of my property, in the middle of the night, and my dogs decide to try to sing back (which they are terrible at). If you've ever heard a Lab trying to sing like coyote, you'll appreciate how absolutely awful they are at singing. So bad that my wife and I break into giggles.
What's great is that if it someone comes near our property, my dogs just bark. But as soon as I hear that strangled howl, even if I haven't heard the yotes, I know all is well and safe and it's just night-time singing.
A world without coyotes would be a poorer world indeed. Although I might get a little more sleep.
129
I see coyotes while riding my bike in the early morning hours and they are skittish. You might never see one if you are walking or riding in a car because they will see you first and move out of the way. In my view they are good at scavenging around humans in a way that cougars or wolves couldn't because cougars/wolves are a lot worse threat to human safety. When I consider how wolves coyotes and cougars kill, generally by literally going for the jugular, I would definitely be careful to keep kids away from them by at a minimum picking them up if at all possible. But generally it's hard to imagine a coyote threatening an adult because they are relatively small.
They are faster however than a wolf and they can scare cougars when coyotes run in packs and they steal cougars kills.
Maybe they fill a niche that enables them to thrive.
11
Al I can say is good. Good for the coyote! We have destroyed so much here on this gorgeous planet in just the last 100 years. If coyotes can colonize and survive, I cheer them on. I have known people who have shot them indiscriminately, either for fun or to save small game for their own rifles. But when I am lucky enough to glimpse one or two trotting across the grasses, or hear them whoop in the evening after a kill, my heart is full. So Yes, I hope they thrive, and perhaps they will outlive the human race in the end. They are truly more deserving than the human species, at any rate.
51
It's a treat to see these wild animals in an urban environment. I also love the raccoons that appear regularly at night.
16
"They breed fast, eat almost anything and live just about anywhere."
Just like humans.
77
Humans are the ultimate invasive species.
56
Last summer my security lights went on and we have had problems with some kids coming into our sub division and breaking into autos. Went out with my pistol because my next door neighbor asked some kids to get off our property and he got a nasty reply and when he pulled out his pistol - off the went. Well it turned out to be a coyote looking for something to eat. They have taken several small dogs and cats in the neighborhood. When the coyote saw me he went around a bush and sloped off.
A coyote did attack a 9 year old girl in SC when she prevented it from taking her small dog. Her mother heard her screams and came out and chased the coyote off. Rabies shots are not the horrid thing they used to be - just a regular sized needle into a shoulder or hip.
When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, the coyotes were evicted and small critters made a big comeback as did the hawks, owls and other critters who dined on these critters. A very good thin IMHO.
14
The spread could also possibly be linked to the ever expanding human population where coyotes can find it easy to scavenge waste or find easy prey like domestic animals.
31
"wildlife managers working to get rid of coyotes" is very likely what caused them to move. With the 'kill all' policy in the West, the coyotes started moving into areas without the gas traps and poisons and hunters. The expanded range and numbers of coyotes are brought to you by your government tax dollars at work.
32
Few sounds stir the primordial soul as the howl of the coyote echoing through the canyons and arroyos of the west or the haunting late-night call of the loon across the moon-mirrored surface of a wilderness lake...
In a sleeping bag, I have known the soul at rest.....
62
Beautiful words!
11
Many, many years ago I had a dog that I think may have been a dog/coyote hybrid. She was a free puppy from a house that faced woods and her mother was a small Shepard mix. Her physical features matched quite well. She would catch small mice and field rats for fun and sometimes brought one over to us as a gift. Her personality was positively feline. She had a screechy howl and high pitched yips. I heard the same sound on our first camping trip in Texas when a pack was yipping across the river from our campground. I miss her still.
47
In the last 13 years of driving a taxi in NYC I have encountered not once, but twice, coyotes on the streets of Manhattan (a humans-only island, no doubt one of the most unlikely environments in the world to make the unexpected acquaintance of a wild mammal ). Both encounters took place after midnight, both times in residential areas with no pedestrians in sight.
During this same period of time I have encountered only one stray dog. So you're more likely to encounter a coyote on the streets of New York City than a dog without its owner. This makes for great conversation in my taxi. "Be careful," I say to the passenger leaving the cab, "it's a jungle out there!"
70
How wonderful for you to witness coyotes in Manhattan! Like pigeons, these animals that survive humanity's destruction of wild space should be celebrated, not despised. They're the hope that a bit of nature may survive with us if we can all make it through the destruction ahead.
25
I would suggest that one thing that may help explain coyotes' successful expansion is their resemblance to dogs. Inasmuch as people generally like dogs, that mitigates a coyote's appearance of "otherness." That combined with he fact that coyotes don't attack humans makes them relatively acceptable. In addition, their howling makes them a fairly safe, resonant symbol of the natural world, one which, I expect, evokes a sense of solidarity, perhaps even nostalgia, for humanity's past.
An enjoyable little read is "God's Dog: Conversations With Coyote", by Webster Kitchell.
28
Coyote packs often howl in the night around here. These animals are shy of people and the house cats, even the semi-feral ones are safe as field mice are everywhere. We've seen a large bold coyote hunting them in a field right in front of the house using that elegant pouncing technique just like a feline.
When we had dogs out here in the country we never had a problem, but did in town, with a subdivision in view less than half a mile away. A solitary coyote came over the summit of a bluff, ambled downhill & peered at us, then started slowly back uphill, leering over his shoulder at the dogs. They took the bait & started after him. I was barely able to call them back. A minute later heads & shoulders appeared over the crest; disappointed coyotes as playtime never happened..and maybe dinner?
14
Love coyotes! They've been a fact of life here in the San Fernando Valley my entire life. I now live near the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains where I encounter them during sunset hikes and every so often cruising my neighborhood. Once in the heat of a summer day, I witnessed one scramble up and over my 5 foot block wall to drink water from my fish pond! Sometimes I can hear their yapping after sundown which is a thrilling sound that connects me to the incredible nature surrounding LA in its mountains, canyons, and ocean.
One of my best encounters was walking a trail at night with my late golden retriever, Agena, along the urban wild interface of northwestern Los Angeles. She came to an abrupt stop as she stared straight up the small hill on the wild side of the trail. In the eery moonlight I could see first, one lean canid-shaped shadow then several more join it at the top of the hill looking down on us. The lead coyote then yapped several syllables at us as we stood statue still in awe. I then called out to it, "I see you, my friend, and honor your beautiful space here. Thank you for letting us pass through in peace." It yapped at us once more as I patted Agena on her rump to proceed. The coyotes then just watched us as we continued on our way and I floated home on a cloud of interconnected well-being. Like I said, I love coyotes...
53
Another factor in coyote expansion may be the decline (or extermination) of the southeastern red wolf.
20
Coyote on street in Los Angeles in Collateral:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9JNJThhxY
4
Coyotes have two predators, people and mountain lions. Mountain lions are declining. Few people kill coyotes. Imo, coyotes are out of control. There is no natural balance with these predictors anymore. They feed on people's pets. We need to start looking at them as PESTS!
4
People kill them all the time. We have a preserve nearby, and they've been shot even there, in that protected space. It's not that they are not killed, it's that they are survivors, not unlike us. If they are pests so are we.
14
Actually, Moriah, that may be the problem. "wildlife managers working to get rid of coyotes" is very likely what caused them to move. With the 'kill all' policy in the West, the coyotes started moving into areas without the gas traps and poisons and hunters. The expanded range and numbers of coyotes are due to people treating them like things to be killed instead of part of the natural order. We killed millions and what we got was faster breeding coyotes in more places. PS. wolves also kill coyotes nut just mountain lions. But we've killed them off too.
7
Dr. Kay posits a false dichotomy between "natural" and "invasive" spread. There is no scientific basis for the assertion that one is good and the other bad, nor even for the distinction itself. Almost all species that currently exist were "invasive" at some point in their evolutionary history; only the comparatively rare "endemics" remain in the geographic area where they originated.
This nonscientific value judgement mars an otherwise fascinating article. Coyotes are indeed remarkably adaptive and we have much to learn about rapid evolutionary change.
24
I agree about the false dichotomy. I also want to point out that the coyotes are moving into a niche left vacant by humans' removal of other predators.
20
It was mentioned that coyotes are helped by the loss of large predators. Taking small or even tiny predators out of the equation is likely advantageous to them as well.
I have relatives in a large city in Canada that passed a law making free-roaming house cats illegal. Ferals were trapped and removed. The city coyote population exploded, and researchers found it was because the coyotes were feeding on the rodents and garbage that cats had once consumed.
12
But perhaps the coyotes might not have eaten as many birds as the cats had?
6
Interesting. In my neighborhood the coyotes eat the feral cats and the food that people leave out for the cats. Without the coyotes the cats would be out of control.
23
I'd rather have coyotes than free-roaming cats any day. The first are naturally occurring, the second are artificially-introduced bird killing machines.
27
There is another mammal that spread across the world surprisingly fast. No points for this. Us.
Its not just the flattening of the forest land across the continent and the elimination of their bigger competition that may have led them to wander.
More importantly their native habitats have been destroyed and thus their prey has disappeared. So, they needed to move to your backyard, which once was theirs.
17
Made it to the East Coast in the 1990's? We had them around my home town of Brockport, NY in the late 70's and I saw them several times up near Lake Ontario in the 80's. They will outlive us all!
16
Yes, they've been in Maine at least since the 1950s, if not earlier. I guess the East Coast means New York.
4
The best thing for all the animals and the planet itself would be the extinction of the only animal that gives nothing back to the planet. The only animal that kills for sport. The only animal that poisons its own food, air, and drinking water. The only animal the religious zealots say has a "soul". Remove those animals and the entire planet would be a whole lot better off.
84
Should we start with you, Armo?
18
99% of all the species that have ever existed on this planet are extinct. Near term, a few tens of million years, our planet will be okay.
I hope Canines survive and evolve into something far, far superior to us. Our legacy as a species may be that we helped them along. I've never met a Border Collie yet that didn't have more common sense and empathy than its human.
34
I'm afraid they are already superior. The human bar is quite low.
13
There is a predator that beats the coyote in its expansion: the homo sapiens. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? That's a philosophical question because in the end nothing can be done about it.
19
They are fascinating: they do a great risk/ reward assessment of potential new home areas that is quickly incorporated into new habits that allow them to slide into urban and suburban areas almost inconspicuously. Too bad we cannot 'see 'THEIR acute observations of our behaviors.
I have a hope that they will be major predators of the mice who are major tick carriers spreading Lyme and other tick borne diseases.
I also worry that they may be hit with a rabies epidemic ( triggered by a couple of local cases of confirmed rabies in coyotes which attacked humans) ( and reports of a new strain carried by skunks and foxes). It would be a "natural control" but would make their presence close to humans more dangerous.
21
I don't see how the expansion into Alaska and the Northwest is a mystery. Coyotes are not only predators but scavengers - they can quite happily co-exist with both mountain lions and humans, eating leftover kills, garbage, mice, rabbits, and house pets. They're quite a bit smaller than most people imagine - most around Tahoe are half the size and weight of Labradors or German Shepherds, averaging 40-50 pounds. They adapt to urbanization much like raccoons (which also have nasty teeth and claws if you are trying to chase them out of your garage!).
26
Since the coyotes are nearing the Bering Strait, what's to stop them from crossing the ice one winter and colonizing Siberia? By the way, though they're not predators, armadillos have been spreading almost as rapidly.
10
They eat the critters that are part of the Lyme disease (and other disease) carrying ticks' life cycle. Yes, I know foxes predate mice more and Coyotes kill foxes. I will take what I can get to control ticks naturally. Bonus is coyotes kill the outdoor cat that kills birds. Please, do not complain if you let you cat outdoors. It is simply the right size to be prey.
32
Coyotes are really neat animals. They subsist on small animals and insects primarily.
13
Interesting that the continents did not swap predators for three million years. What was the barrier ? The Panama Canal is not quite that old.
5
I worked for decades on the Houston Ship Channel and even in this highly industrialized, human dense environment I had almost daily encounters with coyotes. I saw them in packs patrolling warehouses, dock areas or open spaces between process units, or as individuals hunting the rats, mice, rabbits and feral cats that had taken up residence there. They did a great job keeping the local vermin in check and usually stayed out of our way, although a few of them liked to interact with us, showing off what they had caught or playing around in front of human audiences, not to mention raiding the dumpsters for tasty tidbits. On the last night of my employment before my retirement, my supervisor and I were on top of a platform watching a water tank being filled, when a large male coyote emerged from the shadows and trotted up to the platform ladder below us. He looked up at me and then proceeded to urinate on the ladder before returning to the dark. My supervisor looked at me in amusement and said “Looks like he said goodbye!”
93
Dogs evolved in central Asia from wolves who hung around humans. It is not clear who domesticated who.
9
From Exene Cervenka's Coyote On The Town:
I love your cats, love your kittens too, there's no tellin' what it is I'll do.
There's an old blood stain, streets could use a little rain.
You're lucky if you see me, you won't see me again
8
Has the road runner’s range also expanded? Has the increase in coyote populations had any effect on Acme stock or sales?
79
It seems likely that human modification of the environment has made it possible for coyotes to expand their range. But why this would happen simultaneously in environments as diverse as western Alaska, Florida, and Panama is a mystery to me.
And thanks for publishing the maps of the coyotes expanding range.
7
The howl of coyotes is often heard in my neck of the Central Virginia Piedmont. When it's close to the house at night, my eyes snap open and I find myself bolt upright in bed. It's a primeval response of alarm.
The Haislip Cotton Rat has recently expanded its range to our neighborhood and provides a plump snack for our resident bobcat and vagrant coyotes.
19
Exactly! How can we get coyotes to move into the cities and solve our Rat problem?
8
Like other states, Virginia has a bounty on coyotes. Farmers and livestock ranchers made sure of that. Frankly, when coyotes are around, our stray cat, rabbit, and fox inhabitants dwindle to nothing...but not smaller rodents. They breed too prolifically to be undone by any carnivore.
2
I just hope you aren't using poison on your rats. I can't believe how many of Pale Male's mates died due to rat poison. Stop the poisoning! It does nothing to eradicate rodents but instead kills their natural predators.
5