Coyotes and Pets in Dangers

The species has used cunning and wit to frustrate predator control efforts by governmental agencies since the first bounty legislation was enacted in 1825 by the state of Missouri. In 1915, the U. S. government’s Fish and Wildlife Service began a predator control campaign, aimed largely at the coyote. Figures compiled over the next 30 years place the take of coyotes west of the Mississippi in excess of three million, yet the coyote remained as abundant as ever and actually expanded its geographic territory to include urban areas and range once occupied by the eradicated Mexican Gray Wolf.

The coyote has increased its range almost with a sense of humor. Experienced coyotes will dig up traps, flip them over, and mark them with urine and scat. Biologists have learned what the Native Americans have know for thousands of years. This wily canid is a reflection of human nature, embodying our own contradictions and ambiguity. Like human beings, the mythical Coyote often tries to be what he isn’t, often with disastrous results. He tries to fly with blackbirds only to fall from the sky. His attempts to skim over water like dragonflies only to drown at the bottom of a pond.

Despite his bad luck and propensity for death, Coyote always revives. He goes on blithely to his next adventure. Astute, sagacious, iconoclastic, versatile, shrewd, mischievous, fleet-footed, resourceful, playful, cunning and droll, the coyote has outwitted its only natural predator, humankind, for centuries.

The term "coyote" comes from the animal’s Aztec name, which is "coyotl." European settlers traveling west called the coyote by many names, including "cased wolf," "prairie wolf," "medicine dog" and "phantom wolf." The coyote figures prominently in many Native American legends as a creator, a trickster and dupe named "Brother Coyote" or "Old Man Coyote." Some of the many other Native American names include "First Scolder," "First Warrior" and "Fine Young Chief Howling in the Dawn Beyond the East."

Scientists have dubbed this member of the canine family Canis latrans, which means "barking dog," although anyone who has heard a pack serenade the stars on a clear night knows that the coyote’s mournful dirge can hardly be likened to the bark of a domesticated dog. Once known primarily for prowling the plains and plateaus of the Western United States and Mexico, the coyote expanded its range in conjunction with the spread of civilization, even following prospectors’ pack trains traveling to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush in 1898. Now the coyote ranges up to Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of Alaska, along the eastern seaboard and south of Mexico into Costa Rica and the tropics.

Above all else the coyote is a survivor. A contemporary of the sabertooth lion, the coyote made its first appearance in Arizona 500,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Period. Primitive in biological terms, the resourceful coyote can survive in adverse conditions. It will run in packs or as a loner. It roams either day or night. It is omnivorous, subsisting on fresh meat, carrion, insects, fruits and vegetables. The combined use of keen senses makes coyote well adapted to hunting. According to one saying, "A feather fell from the sky. The eagle saw it. The deer heard it. The bear smelled it. The coyote did all three."

Coyotes have an insatiable sweet tooth, leading them to raid melon fields and orchards. They have been known to pass over meat in favor of fresh fruits and berries. Although they have a diverse appetite, coyotes primarily feed on seeds, insects, fish, snakes, rabbits and birds. They also stalk larger prey such as domestic sheep, deer and pronghorn antelope.

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Unlike their wolf cousins, coyotes don’t mate for life, although they do share parenting duties when raising their offspring. An average litter of five to seven pups is born during April or May. The young will stay in dens until they reach 8 to 10 weeks old. However, if the mother feels threatened she will move her young to a safer location.

Coyotes will often band together in a family group through the denning season. The average life span of a coyote is thought to the same as the gray wolf, 10 to 15 years. The coyote thrives throughout the desert in a diversity of habitats, encompassing everything from the low Sonoran Desert to forested mountain slopes. The coyote’s notoriety in apparent on detailed maps. In Arizona alone, there are 53 natural features such as washes, hills and springs named after this canny critter.

Perhaps most distinctively, there’s that rich voice—that dark, wild, mournful song which seems to declare an elemental tragedy of life. Coyotes have a diverse vocal repertoire filled with barks, wails and yips. Their disembodied solos earned them the nickname "prairie tenor." Their short bursts of falsetto yips have given them the title of "Laughing Philosopher of the Plains." Despite a strong presence in the desert, coyotes are more often heard than seen. Often they will come together to sing as if in choir lofts, serenading the moon. A coyote is the optimal ventriloquist. It can scatter, shatter, multiply and place its voice with surprising ease. Some tales hold that a true coyote’s voice will not echo, and that at night, a howling coyote changes into a ghost, safe from all of man’s weapons—another story built on the coyote’s uncanny survival skills.

This clever character has captured the human imagination from its early days. Images of the coyote have been found on pre-Columbian pottery shards and in Aztec hieroglyphics. It figures prominently in modern fiction, poetry and music. He is the subject of Joni Mitchell’s hit song "Coyote" and fills the archetypal trickster’s shoes in the popular Warner Brothers Roadrunner cartoons as the plucky bird’s arch nemesis Wile E. Coyote.

In Mexico, coyotes are thought to have diabolical power and that a coyote crossing your path is a jinx. Navajo war expeditions encountering coyotes would interpret its presence as a bad omen, sometimes sufficient reason for calling off the raid. The Hopi also view his howls as a bad portent. In many Native American cultures, the mythical Coyote figure is credited with stealing fire, using his bushy tail as a makeshift torch. This is why the tip is black. He established the seasons. He brought corn to the Hopi. And he taught many Apache warriors, including Geronimo, how to be invisible. Although the mythic Coyote figure occasionally uses his craftiness and cunning for human kind, he more often than not is disobedient, undependable, mischievous, licentious and foolish. The Hopi word for coyote is a name equivalent to "sucker." His month is October, the "mixed up" month that is neither summer nor winter, but somewhere in-between. When Coyote tosses a stone in the water, proclaiming that if it sinks, death must come to the world.

The Hopi attribute the haphazard placement of the stars to Coyote’s cosmic bungling. Coyote was given a big jar to carry and was told not to open the jar, but his curiosity prompted him to lift the lid and peek inside. All of the stars rushed out, singeing his nose as they escaped into the sky. Coyote caught a few and hung them in their proper place in the sky but he quickly grew impatient and let the others stay where they were. Some of the stars, not securely fastened in place, still fall back to earth. This is why there are only a few constellations, why there are shooting stars, and why the coyote nose is black.

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