A clear sky. Low 54F. Winds light and variable..
A clear sky. Low 54F. Winds light and variable.
Once thought of as Western critters, coyotes have a wide range and span all over the U.S. This guy was spotted in Tennessee.
Coyotes are coy and cunning, adaptive and smart animals. This one in Yellowstone pounces on a rodent, a common prey.
A night photo shows a coyote in Fairfield Glade scavenging a wild pig.
Once thought of as Western critters, coyotes have a wide range and span all over the U.S. This guy was spotted in Tennessee.
Coyotes are coy and cunning, adaptive and smart animals. This one in Yellowstone pounces on a rodent, a common prey.
A night photo shows a coyote in Fairfield Glade scavenging a wild pig.
When I moved from Indiana to Texas in 1987, I couldn’t wait to experience some of the things you can expect to see in Texas; rodeos, mesquite trees, rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, and coyotes.
And, over the next 15 years, I saw lots of all of those things.
But since I moved to Tennessee, I have seen more rattlesnakes, scorpions and coyotes than during all my time in Texas.
Within a week of moving into our new house in Texas, we were wakened one night with a pack of coyotes yipping and yapping in our backyard.
We heard them much more often than we ever saw them, and that is the way coyotes are everywhere. I hear them in my backyard here in Tennessee on a regular basis.
Lewis and Clark first saw coyotes in 1804, in what is now Iowa, during their Corps of Discovery expedition. It was a new species for European Americans, and they called it a “Prairie Wolf.”
Originally, coyotes ranged across the Great Plains and the arid west but by the early 1900s, they expanded their range to the Great Lakes area, and nearly to the West Coast. Today, coyotes cover the continent, from coast to coast and from Mexico to Alaska.
You no longer need to move to Texas to hear coyotes. You can encounter them anywhere, even in major American cities.
Denver did an extensive study and determined that within the Denver metro area, there are 112 coyote packs consisting of just over 1,000 animals.
It was reported that 5,000 coyotes live in Los Angeles, and 4,000 in Chicago.
Coyotes actually live longer in urban areas than they do in rural areas.
Their normal food is rats and mice and there are plenty of those in cities.
In Chicago, they also take advantage of the Canada geese along the lakeshore, dining on eggs and chicks.
In most of the U.S., coyotes are the top predator since wolves and mountain lions were eliminated.
In Yellowstone National Park, once gray wolves were reintroduced, the wolves regained the top spot, and the coyote population dropped. Although wolves kill just about any coyote that they catch, coyotes still thrive in Yellowstone, but there is just better balance now.
Are coyotes dangerous to humans? Not normally.
In the history of the United States, there has only been one reported human death from a coyote. That was a 3-year-old child in Los Angeles in 1981.
After that attack, an intensive campaign was mounted to kill every coyote in that area. In 1 square mile around the attack site, 53 coyotes were killed.
Then, in 2009, a 19-year-old female was killed by two coyotes in Novia Scotia. There have been no other reported fatalities by coyotes in the history of North America.
People do get bitten occasionally by coyotes. It is estimated that five to 10 people a year are bitten by coyotes, mostly in Southern California for some reason, and those bites are usually minor.
Will coyotes eat your cat? Maybe; it does happen.
Coyotes have a reputation for grabbing dogs and cats right out of your yard.
There are news articles from time to time of a coyote snatching a small dog from the end of a leash and running off, or of missing cats.
One resident in our area a few years ago found their cat’s collar in the yard one morning, and a neighbor reported hearing coyotes the night before.
Studies have shown that most coyotes stick to their regular diet of mice, rabbits and insects, but a few individuals do develop a taste for sheep, or cats, or trash.
Analysis of coyote scat in urban areas show that, on average, pets, pet food and trash, account for less than 2% of a coyote’s diet.
One British Columbia coyote den yielded 55 cat collars.
In Dallas, it was common knowledge that outdoor cats didn’t last long.
Coyotes have been under continuous assault since they were discovered.
A few states still pay bounties on dead coyotes. Tennessee is not one of those, but coyotes here can be hunted year-round.
Over the past 200 years, coyotes have been shot from the ground and from airplanes, poisoned with strychnine, cyanide, Compound 1080, and even killed by intentionally spreading sarcoptic mange.
Even with all of the effort to destroy and eliminate coyotes, they have flourished. It has been shown that when coyotes are stressed, litter size increases to make up for the losses.
I recently read two books about coyotes. The first was called The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton, about a coyote she raised from a tiny pup. It is a fun, easy read.
The second book was Coyote America by Dan Flores, a professor at the University of Montana. It is a harder read with lots of facts, figures and research.
Coyotes! Some people love them, some hate them.
Native Americans called the coyote a trickster, and it was considered a crafty, intelligent animal.
But no matter what you think about coyotes, you might as well get used to them, because they are undeniably adaptive, smart and here to stay.
Comments, questions or suggestions for future nature articles are welcome at don.hazel@gmail.com.
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