Living With Coyotes

Near the dawn of time, the story goes; Coyote saved the creatures of Earth. According to the mythology of Idaho's Nez Perce people, the monster Kamiah had stalked into the region and was gobbling up the animals one by one. The crafty Coyote evaded Kamiah but didn't want to lose his friends, so he let himself be swallowed. From inside the beast, Coyote severed Kamiah's heart and freed his fellow animals. Then he chopped up Kamiah and threw the pieces to the winds, where they gave birth to the peoples of the planet. 

– Nature

Yote - short for coyote, Wile E. Coyote, Canis latrans.   If you were to inquire of a wildlife biologist they would tell you that there are nineteen subspecies of coyote that are exceedingly well-adapted to living in urban, rural and wild America.   

Male coyotes top out at about 44 pounds while females weigh-in slightly less.  For scale my Labs are bulkier than the average coyote.  Coyotes are known for how well they adapt to different habitats.  They are found living in and around large cities, the central plains, farmland, and northern forest, in the desert scrub of the Sonoran Desert, foothills and mountains as well as in populated ring suburbs. 

Coyotes dine on large prey and also eat snakes, insects, rodents, fruit and other mast.  As an opportunistic hunter coyotes have been known to prey-upon small pets and livestock.  In an urban setting they will eat garbage and pet food left on a deck or patio.  The coyote is a gregarious animal - socially-inclined - like the wolf.  This is likely a consequence of the need for a family unit or pack of animals combining to bring down large game. 

Recent genetic studies suggest that coyotes are not native to the eastern United States - having largely evolved on the Great Plains.  As the eastern old growth forests were cleared for settlement and agriculture coyotes adapted to the new environs.   It is thought that coyotes dispersed to our neck of the woods early in the twentieth century.  These canids are presumed to have come from the northern Great Plains and are unique in their genetic origins.  Additional coyotes dispersed from here to New England via the northern Great Lakes region and southern Canada meeting in the 1940s in New York and Pennsylvania. These coyotes have inter-bred  with gray wolf and Eastern wolf populations adding to their own unique genetic diversity and further contributing to their hybrid vigor and ability to adapt to an ever changing environment.  Coyotes here are known as the Northeastern coyote. 

More frequently Jill and I hear coyote vocalizations than we see them live and in person.  In rural America coyotes share the same natural aversion to people that other wildlife do.  They are scared-to-death of people.  However, from time to time I do capture a handful of digital photos on a trail camera. 

All of which leads to this:  On May 18^th at 4:45 AM the camera closest to the house captured a series of burst photos of a group of whitetails moving thru.  A couple of shots are here...

 

So far - so good.

Five minutes later at 4:50 AM this healthy-looking coyote appeared on the scene….

click on the images for a closer look

Nice-looking coyote.  All the same I'll keep my dogs close as best I can.

Learn more from this terrific read in yesterday's Washington Post.