Wiley Coyote

In the creation story of Idaho’s Nez Perce people it was Coyote who saved the creatures of Earth.

 

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. 

 

 

The scientific name for the coyote is Canis latrans – literally barking dog. 

 

 

A diurnal or crepuscular creature (namely active during daylight hours or at dawn and dusk) coyotes that reside in closer proximity to people tend to be more nocturnal. Unless they become habituated to our presence wild coyotes will make every attempt to steer clear of people. 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 tip the scales at about 44 pounds while females weigh-in slightly less. For scale our red-golden retriever, Ruby, weighs about the same. 

 

 

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 - The implication is they 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.

 

Jill and I hear coyote vocalizations rather frequently. A live sighting is rare as in rural America coyotes share the same natural aversion to people that other wildlife do. 

 

They are scared-to-death of people. 

 

 

Nevertheless, digital trail camera images are common. Ruby and I ran the trail camera trap line recently and she sez that judging from the quantity of images over a couple of weeks that coyotes “are cheap” around here. 

 

These are all night IR images; not a single daylight photo. It’s mating season and maybe that has something to do with it?  

 

Coyote one followed by coyotes two.  A mated pair?

The Urban Coyote

From time to time I've had an opportunity to attend a woodland owner conference, compare notes with neighbors, chat with a wildlife biologist or simply ponder my own personal observations and encounters with the top predator in our neighborhood.  Sure, we may occasionally encounter a gray wolf or a black bear around these parts but they're generally dispersing males and not found as breeding populations.  And since we don't have large breeding populations of humans close to where I live; wildlife encounters around here are strictly from a rural perspective. 

The purpose of this post is to draw attention to how Wiley Coyote has adapted to urban life and what, if anything, you might want to know about it or do about it.   

The frantic animal in the photo below was photographed on a motion-activated trail camera while being pursued by a pack of trailing hounds belonging to some neighbors of mine a couple of years ago.  Around here, coyotes are universally wary of humans.  This is a consequence of being hunted.   

Meet Canis latrans.... 

The translation from Latin - barking dog.  Coyotes are wild dogs and depending upon their location sport a grayish-brown coat that can vary from silver-gray to black.  The tail uniformly has a black tip.  Unlike the brown eyes of a domestic dog a coyote's eyes are yellow.  Adults can tip the scales at roughly 25-35 pounds and occasionally a healthy, well-fed specimen might grow to 40-45 pounds. 

Native to the Great Plains and deserts of Mexico coyotes have dispersed over the last several hundred years and now range from the arctic to Central America.  An exceedingly adaptable predator its numbers have grown as settlement reduced the numbers of larger predators such as cougars, wolves and grizzly bears.

Coyotes are opportunistic hunters feeding mainly upon small rodents, fruit, rabbits and deer - all found in bountiful abundance in a city.  Regrettably, a small dog or cat is the same as any other smaller prey animal that a coyote might seek as a food source. 

In Wisconsin coyote numbers have steadily increased and their remarkable adaptability to the urban environment has given rise to coyote, pet and human conflicts. 

Most of these encounters arise because coyotes become habituated to the presence of people and lose their natural fear of humans.  It is the abundance of food resources at the root of this.  If you have a bird feeder coyotes will both eat from the feeder and eat the animals attracted to the feeder.  Feeding the family dog or cat from a pet bowl on the patio or deck is a singularly bad idea.  And the common denominator found in coyote attacks upon family pets is typically a lack of supervision while outdoors.  If you have to let your dog out to do their business stay outside with it - especially during the periods of dawn and dusk.  Finally, don't let your cats wander.  It is dangerous for the cat on too many levels to count and outdoor cats are the single largest predator of wild song birds.

Sure, I know someone reading this is going to think this is nonsense and a huge inconvenience.  They're likely thinking:  Why not trap the coyote and release it somewhere else?  of kill the varmint? 

While it may be legal to trap and relocate the animal doing so simply makes your nuisance coyote someone else's nuisance coyote.  Besides, in the absence of altering the conditions of wildlife feeding and corralling your pets you may most assuredly rely-upon another coyote moving-in to claim the territory of the prior occupant.

Counterintuitively, if a community expects to solve the problem by employing large scale lethal means to reduce coyote numbers the Town Fathers are going to run-up against the Law of Unintended Consequences.  The complex biological response of coyotes to large scale lethal control efforts is to have larger litters with more females per litter.  They are adaptable after all.

So what to do? 

Take steps to discourage coyotes.  In addition to removing food and being vigilant about your pets if you see a coyote you should haze it relentlessly.  If a coyote approaches you or a pet respond by throwing things at it, yelling at it, spray it with a garden hose, a super soaker or (with some restrictions) pepper spray.  Make the encounter miserable for the animal.  Be fearless.  You are bigger and coyotes naturally avoid people.  Moreover, there is not a single documented case of an attack upon a human by a coyote in the Midwest.  If your response is to pick-up Fluffy the Dog and run in the opposite direction you've reinforced the message to the animal that he is Top Dog.

This time of year is breeding time for coyotes and as a consequence activity will increase with the arrival of pups in the months of May and June.  If a person is attacked or you encounter an animal acting aggressively contact the Department of Natural Resources or local law enforcement.

A word about the Coywolf.  A coywolf - the eastern coyote - is a hybrid wolf coyote species that emerged a long time ago after coyotes dispersed from the central plains and colonized the northeast United States and southeastern Canada.  Contrary to any breathless report you might see on Facebook coywolves may possibly be found in the northernmost reaches of Wisconsin; but evidence is sketchy and sightings scarce.  Furthermore, to an untrained eye coywolves look and behave no differently than the coyotes we know to be around here.  So I suppose none of us would know one if we saw one.  You may relax.  

In closing, if you live in a city environment and care to engage in some citizen science you might want to check out websites like iNaturalist.org - Milwaukee County Coyote Watch. 

Chicago is not just home to the Bears it is also home to a resident population of several thousand coyotes.  Chicago coyotes have been participants in a longitudinal study for more than two and a half decades.  Started in 2000 this is the longest-running comprehensive study of its kind.  Remarkably, researchers have documented den site locations near Soldier Field and Navy Pier.  You can learn more about the Cook County Coyote Project here.

Meanwhile if you want to learn how to haze a coyote there is this... 

Anniversary

Sometimes you cannot celebrate anniversaries enough.  Wedding, first buck, deer camp and more.  The post card above arrived in the mail the other day reminding me that this is the seventh anniversary of the deployment of a Snapshot Wisconsin DNR trail camera on our property on October 20, 2018.

The Snapshot program utilizes volunteers to help identify and count the animals recorded on these trail cameras.  Crowdsourcing the data of where and when each photo was taken will hopefully lend further understanding of wildlife population distributions across Wisconsin and how these distributions change over time. Snapshot Wisconsin is a consistent mechanism to monitor all types of wildlife throughout the year.   The most frequently photographed animal happens to be Odocoileus virginianus, the whitetail deer.  Same here.  The top four animals captured here are as follows (in rank order) - Deer, Turkey, Cottontail and Racoon

Funded primarily through Pittman-Robertson dollars provided by the Federal government to Wisconsin DNR. Other funding is provided by a grant from the NASA Applied Science Program through the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Other partners include UW-Extension, Adler Planetarium, Zooniverse, Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers and the Wisconsin Environmental Education Board. 

Having commenced year number eight this last autumn I deployed the third camera having lost the previous two to critter damage and a technology failure.  With five additional cameras deployed on the property this is nothing new. 

Anyway, to celebrate the occasion I thought I'd share a handful of some of my favorite photos captured from the same location.  

 

 

 

From the top: a buck, fisher, coyote, turkey, bald eagle, fawn and some river otters.  Time flies when you're having fun. 

Fun Fact:  In July of last year the Snapshot program celebrated their 100 millionth photo.  The photo featured for Door County was taken by the camera we host.  

Wiley Coyote

From time to time I have discussed the interactions of red fox and coyotes if their territories overlap and share the same turf.  It's generally not collegial.

I cannot speak to the nature of their coexistence around here inasmuch as I have no evidence of it being good, bad or inconsequential.

Here are some coyote trail camera images and video retrieved from the most recent batch.  This afternoon I'll publish fox imagery taken from the same batch and same time span. 

 

 

Between you and me Old Wiley has probably robbed that loose cat around here of a couple of her lives....

Wiley Coyote

From the trail camera trap line are some coyote video shorts

 

And because coyotes are opportunistic predators - a deer with a broken leg  

 

Wiley Coyote

Unlike wintertime coyotes sporting their prime winter coats the summertime coyotes around here look a bit scrawnier; like their cartoon brother.

 

 

Canis Latrans

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 When we had hunting dogs our 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. 

 

There photos were taken by the same camera one minute apart.  Same animal, same location, infrared and color... 

 

Wiley Coyote

Girl coyote followed by boy coyote.

 

I wonder if they are a mated pair?  

Wiley Coyote

A couple of weeks ago we came across this recently deceased coyote on a trail in the woods.  Inasmuch as this canine is the top predator around these parts I wonder what the back story is.  If a hunter killed it you would naturally conclude he would've tracked it and retrieved it for the pelt.  How this critter met its demise will remain a mystery.  Oh well.

Meanwhile these photos were taken only a couple hundred yards from the house. 

Trail Camera Collage

Some recent images from the trail camera trap line include:

A curious doe

A screech owl

A timber doodle (North American Woodcock)

A couple of gobblers 

And Wiley Coyote 

Affordable Housing

Inspected and cleaned nest boxes today. Fifty of them. 

 

Evicted four families of mice and in a Caddy Shack moment Jill was attacked by a squirrel hiding in a box.

 

After three decades of building these this is the final nest box design. Constructed of cedar they’re very durable. The right side wall flips-up for cleaning or inspection.   Took a page from Henry Ford's book on manufacturing - interchangeable parts make for efficient repairs.  Affordable housing for cavity nesting songbirds.

 

 

Our woods was thinned during COVID and now that the canopy has been opened all sorta natural regeneration is happening.  Like these spruce seedlings. 

 

The resident pileated woodpeckers are disassembling this snag.

 

 

Recently deceased coyote. I wonder what the backstory is.

 

 

Fetched a load of firewood from the north forty. Including a Smirnoff Ice bottle from the ditch.  Not from my tribe.

 

A whitetail that didn’t survive winter.   I wonder about the backstory. 

 

 

Me and my side kick catching some rays with a Guatemalan Lager

 

 

Canine Comparison

A week ago doggo and I swapped out the SD cards on the trail camera trap line.

 

There was maintenance to perform.  Cam #1 needed a reboot. We can go back out to do that when we replace Cam #2 which has finally died after more than a half-dozen years of nonstop, 24/7 service.

 

More important was this.

 

These video clips were taken the morning of March 23, 2025 by Cam #5 (which is set to video mode). 

 

The first is of a coyote at 5:39 AM. 

 

 

The second is of my upland bird dog at 10:41 AM. 

 

 

Same day and same location.  Different times.  Because the cam is immobile it’s a terrific opportunity to compare stature between the two canines. Ruby tips the scales at 42 pounds.

Wile E. Coyote

Perhaps some of this can be explained by retirement affording the opportunity to live here year-round.  Or having sic trail cameras deployed year-round.  And checking them pretty regularly at two week intervals.  Nevertheless, I cannot recall a time when I have been witness to so many coyotes.

Wile E. Coyote sure makes the rounds.....

Wile E. Coyote

And how about a little local coyote action?

Predators Are Cheap

Perhaps some of this can be explained by retirement affording the opportunity to live here year-round.  Or having sic trail cameras deployed year-round.  And checking them pretty regularly at two week intervals.  Nevertheless, I cannot recall a time when I have been witness to so many coyotes.

Wile E. Coyote sure makes the rounds.....

 

And for good measure a fox.  Tall, pointy ears, no white tip on the tail.  Might just be a grey fox.  But that's anybody's guess....