Coyotes: Intrepid Survivors Triumph Over Human Predation

My dogs respond in different ways to the coyotes who often appear near our house. Sometimes they'll be feeling playful, and they'll all run around together. On other occasions they're more wary and there'll be a lot of barking, with everyone keeping his distance. In summer, we've encountered a mother coyote pacing back and forth and barking at us, anxious to protect her den of cubs. But whenever coyotes perform their group bark/howl/yap ritual at night, my dogs always respond with wild barking of their own. Which is only natural. They're all members of the dog family, and they clearly feel a kinship with each other. Coyotes and dogs have been known to mate. Their offspring are called coy dogs.

Coyotes, or canis latrans (barking dog) are survivors, despite relentless human predation, mostly because they're highly adaptable and smart. In fact, they positively flourished after wolves were nearly exterminated in the 1800s. In the United States, they can be found in the East as well as the West.

The coyote is omnivorous. He consumes deer, bighorn sheep, rodents, jackrabbits, domestic cats, insects, various plants, and in the case of the suburban coyote, dog food and dumpster food. The diet of the desert coyotes in my area is 40% vegetal, with the remainder carrion, jackrabbits, insects, and whatever else is available. I often come upon coyote scat, easily distinguished from domestic dog feces because of the seeds and other plant material mixed in. Contrary to rancher myth, coyotes may actually benefit livestock by consuming large numbers of jackrabbits, the cow's major competitors for forage. In the Southwest, they raid farms and gardens, eating melons, raspberries, grapes, and chiles (they're smart enough to consume only the flesh, not the seeds).

Desert coyotes weigh half as much as other coyotes (20 lbs as opposed to 40 lbs) and have paler, shorter, thinner fur, which makes them better able to dissipate excess heat and blend into the landscape. They can run up to 40 miles an hour, their bushy tails characteristically drooping, and are capable of traveling several hundred miles in a single night.