Staring into the Eyes of the Eastern Coyote

A complicated story and a complicated canine.

It was a bright Saturday afternoon in March when my son and I were driving home from a fairly remote spot in Hancock. We were on our way back from pulling a disk of images from my game camera. 

We turned a corner and saw standing in the road a light blonde canine staring back at us. For the few seconds that it stood in the road, we could see it was big, maybe over 50 pounds, with front legs tight together and ears thick with fur.

And then it turned and confidently strode into the woods, brisk but unhurried.

“Was that a dog?” Ben asked.

“Nope,” I said. “That was a coyote. A nice, healthy one. And a great view of it.”

When we got home and checked the game camera images, I saw more coyotes staring at me. It didn’t take long for me to see that the camera had photographed three coyotes over the past few weeks. There were shots of all three together, and many more images of each individual.

Tawny, Scruffy and Healthy

After a few more weeks of setting up the camera at this spot, I got to know each coyote little. I could see their individual characteristics, a little personality and patterns of behavior.

There’s the tawny one, generally shy, who stopped appearing in late-February. I’m not sure, but I theorize that Tawny could be a female who’s now with pups in the den.

There’s the scruffy one, who’s smaller than the other two, with a bad coat and loss of fur at the base of its tail. Scruffy’s problematic coat could be mange, malnutrition or both. Scruffy seems to take risks, doesn’t have rigid timing patterns and appears less confident than the others. Maybe I’m wrong, but Scruffy could be an 11-month old who has remained with the parents as a pack.

And finally there’s the healthy one. This coyote is bigger than the others, appears at predictable times and seems cautious and confident. Healthy has a nice, shiny coat, a bushy tail, and a black streak between its bright yellowish eyes. I think Healthy is the elder male, and he is very handsome.

The Advantage of Crust

My camera can’t follow this pack everywhere, but if it could, it might show their den, typically just a small hole in the ground that goes back into a larger chamber. On a cold mid-winter night, you might find all three in there. By April or May, it could also be holding Tawny’s litter of four to eight pups.

The past few weeks before snow-melt have been tough on coyotes. This omnivore has few dining options during a good chunk of winter. But by late-winter, the snow gives coyotes an advantage. This winter was a good example. The snowpack of 1 to 2 feet can form a crust that coyotes can navigate easily, but deer cannot. While deer are near the end of their rope by late-March, coyotes – whether single or in a pack – can take down even the healthiest buck.

I saw this recently when a neighbor showed me a deer that had just been killed by coyotes. This healthy buck had a puncture wound in the neck, and its back end had been eaten out.

The thought of coyotes killing deer is just too much for some deer-hunters to bear. A vocal set of deer hunters say killing more coyotes will help the deer herd, thus improving the hunters’ chances of tagging a deer in the fall.

Despite the good intentions of helping both deer and hunters, this misguided approach doesn’t work. Coyotes that dodge the bullet tend to respond to increased mortality by having larger litters.

Cold Eyes from a Postcard

We’ve learned plenty about Eastern coyotes in the past few decades, and there’s plenty more to learn. The Eastern is a lot bigger than its western cousin. We know it hunts in packs, though not as often or as organized as wolves.

And we know that the Eastern coyote is part-wolf (some refer to it as coywolf). We know it appeared in New Hampshire in the mid-1940s.

This point about the Eastern coyote’s emergence into New England touches home with me by way of a 1953 postcard that’s tacked to the kitchen wall at my family’s old camp in Cherryfield, Maine. It shows a Maine game warden inspecting the carcass of a big canine. On the back, the caption says that this was the “first timber wolf shot in Maine in over 100 years.”

Sure, maybe so. Or maybe not. Also possible that the mysterious canine was actually one of the first coyotes to be seen in that part of Maine. Part coyote, part wolf. A complicated story and a complicated canine.

The eyes of the coyote in that postcard are lifeless and cold. Nothing like the bright, alert eyes of the blonde, healthy coyote that glanced at me and my son a few weeks ago. And nothing like the eyes of Tawny, Scruffy and Healthy, whom I’ve come to admire over the past few weeks.

I hope to get to know these coyotes a bit more in the coming months.

Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock.

Our Own Mystery Mammal: The Eastern Coyote

An Eastern coyote in mid-February.

How well do you know Canis latrans var.?

As we paddled around a corner in the marsh, motion caught my eye some 70 yards away, where the forest narrowed and the North Branch River turned into a rocky stream.

At first, I thought the blur was a bobcat. Then, as it hopped across the rocks to cross the stream, I saw it was a coyote, with a nice, long, bushy tail. It didn’t see us -- a small group of kayakers -- as it crossed and loped slowly into the woods.

Then another crossed the stream -- a pup, much to my delight -- playing in the water as it went. I held my hand up to the other kayakers behind me, put my finger to my lips so they’d be quiet, and pointed to the scene. Another pup crossed. Followed by yet another, all seeming to enjoy themselves as much as we enjoyed seeing them.

Finally, another adult crossed, all business-like, and off they went, into the woods. They never even saw us.

You don’t see coyotes too often, even if you spend a lot of time outside. Rarer still to see a whole family of coyotes, in their own setting. They’re kind of a mystery mammal.

With that in mind, here’s a quiz about coyotes:

1. New Hampshire’s Eastern coyote populations were wiped out in the early 1800s; they returned in the early 1900s when the forests grew back.
True or false?

2. Why do Eastern coyotes howl?
a) To excite other coyotes about a hunt.
b) Because it’s mating season.
c) To tell competing coyotes to stay away.
d) To draw their pack together.

3. Eastern coyotes typically eat:
a) House cats, small dogs and other pets.
b) Squirrels, mice, voles, frogs, apples, berries, fawns, adult deer, snowshoe hare and other seasonally available foods.
c) Fruit and vegetables.
d) Fish and rabbits.

4. An Eastern coyote typically weighs:
a) About as much as a Western coyote.
b) 30 to 50 pounds.
c) 80 to 100 pounds.
d) Much less than a Western coyote.

5) The Eastern coyote is more accurately described as a “coydog,” because of its hybridization with dogs. True or false?

6. The term “coywolf” is a more accurate description of Eastern coyotes. True or false?

7. Because of their impact on deer populations, the best way to manage Eastern coyote populations is to encourage high annual harvests. True or false?

8. If you encounter a coyote, the best thing to do is:
a) Run away.
b) Savor the sight calmly and safely from a distance, standing your ground, but not making a big reaction.
c) Yell and throw objects at the coyote.
d) Curl up in a fetal position and hope that it goes away.

Answers:
1. False. According to prevailing scientific thought, New Hampshire’s first confirmed coyote was in 1944 in Grafton County. The spread of Eastern coyotes across the state really took off in the 1970s, north to south.

2. D. Biologists have observed that Eastern coyotes howl to locate each other and regroup their pack, especially in the fall and winter when the pups are old enough to start hunting on their own.

3. B. Coyotes are omnivores that thrive on opportunities offered by the season, whether it’s berries, rodents, ground-nesting birds or even garbage and carcasses. They will occasionally take pets, but that’s not a big part of their diet.

4. B, about 30 to 50 pounds. By comparison, the smaller Western coyote typically weighs 25 to 30 pounds.

5. False. While coyotes and dogs have been known to breed, there’s generally low viability of their litters. For one thing, the female coyote needs the male’s help in providing food. Studies have found little evidence of domestic dog genes in the mix of Eastern coyotes.

6. True. Genetic studies have shown that our Eastern coyotes are the result of hybridization between Western coyotes and Eastern wolves.

7. False. While the science, sociology and politics of managing coyotes is complex, research and experience have shown that Eastern coyotes can respond to hunting pressure by having larger litters or freeing up young females to breed. The end result can be more coyotes. This is a testament to the coyote’s remarkable ability to adapt to changing conditions.

8. B. If you encounter a coyote, the best thing to do is savor the sight. Relax and enjoy. Coyotes don’t want to mess with people and attacks are extremely rare. So watch and enjoy them. Running away can trigger a chase response in a coyote, and throwing things could upset them.
Eric Aldrich writes from his home in Hancock.