STAYIN' ALIVE:

The coyote is one of the most intelligent, adaptable, and familiar mammals of North America. Indigenous to the continent, the coyote (Canis latrans) is a relatively small species of canid that evolved during the Pleistocene era, about a million years ago. The evolutionary strategy of the coyote was to become smaller, smarter, and more adaptable than its competitors, allowing it to carve out an ecological niche as small game hunters and scavengers. Coyotes have been in North America for far longer than Homo sapiens, who arrived on the continent anywhere from 13,000 to 33,000 years ago. Although coyotes are by nature not easily domesticated, Native American human populations and coyotes still maintained a relatively close (but cautious) relationship. Coyotes were drawn to human settlements due to the prevalence of rodents to catch and food to scavenge, and humans were fascinated with the eerily familiar intelligence and curiosity that they identified in coyotes. The colonization of North America by Europeans and their rapid westward expansion had a huge impact on most of the continent’s species, including coyotes. Where Native Americans had coexisted with coyotes and perceived them with reverence, the tendency of coyotes to kill livestock led Europeans (who had no cultural relationship to the animal) to regard them as nuisances to be dealt with. This animosity resulted in a sustained campaign to eradicate coyotes across the continent to accommodate the expansion of farmland and the establishment of urban centers. Despite European efforts to destroy them, however, coyote populations were able to adapt to and even thrive under their new circumstances. Centuries later, coyotes can be found across the entire North American continent, even in human populated areas such as farmland, suburbs, and cities. Due to their intelligence and adaptability, coyotes have been able to succeed and thrive despite the rapid changes in North American ecology brought on by European colonization.

The key to the success of the coyote lies in their unique set of evolutionary adaptations, which have allowed them to adapt to and thrive under a variety of ecological circumstances. Early in their evolutionary history, coyotes were large pack animals, akin to the modern wolf (Canis lupus). During the Pleistocene Era, coyotes hunted in groups and competed with other large canids for big game such as including horses, sloths, camels, and other megafauna.1 However, as the Holocene era began and the North American ecological landscape began to shift, many of the megafauna on which canid species used to prey, died out. This created more competition for food and other resources, especially between coyotes and wolves). In response to this evolutionary challenge, Canis latrans underwent several important changes, the most impactful of which were altered physiology, new dietary behaviors, and a shift in social patterns.2 The depletion of available large game in combination with competition from wolves pressured coyote populations to become smaller and nimbler over generations, lessening their competition with wolves. Additionally, coyotes developed scavenging behaviors; supplementing their diet of small game with anything from wild fruits and vegetables to carcasses left by wolves.3 The scrappy survivalism and acute intelligence that we observe in the modern coyote can be partially attributed to the ecological pressures that coyote populations evolved to overcome during this period. Even with their altered morphology and dietary behavior, coyotes still may not have survived if not for their social adaptations. Like most canids, early coyotes were exclusively pack hunters. However, this strategy began to fail in the early Holocene Era when wolf packs began to harass coyote packs, often killing their pups. In response, coyotes evolved a “fission/fusion” social adaptation, shared by only a few mammals including humans. When their population is under pressure, coyotes employ “fission” behavior and scatter into pairs or single hunters, reducing their vulnerability to persecution. When the pressure is lifted, coyotes can “fuse” back together into packs and cooperate to take down larger game.4 The versatility allowed by this social strategy has been a key factor in the coyote’s ability to survive and even thrive despite rapidly changing ecological conditions.

The historical relationship between humans and coyotes is a deep and complicated one which has evolved greatly over the thousands of years since Homo sapiens arrived in North America. During most of this relationship, Native Americans were the only humans on the continent, and enjoyed a state of relative peace and coexistence with coyotes. Contrary to common belief, the colonization of urban areas by coyotes is not a new phenomenon. Just like modern towns and cities, Native American settlements provided a perfect source of rodents and small game for coyotes, and that consistent supply of food kept coyotes relatively close to human populations.5 This proximity allowed humans to develop a sense of familiarity with coyotes. This familiarity was amplified by the stark similarities that Native Americans identified between humans and coyotes, given the intelligence that characterizes both species. For this reason, coyotes play a major role in Native cultures wherever coyotes are found. Coyotes were traditionally located in the wide prairies and deserts from Mexico up through the Great Plains, and therefore the animal was most prevalent in the cultures occupying those areas. Coyote appears as both a religious and mythical character in many oral traditions across the continent, all of which depicted him in different ways. In many cultures, like those of the Salish and Nez Perce peoples, Coyote acts not as the ultimate deity but as an all-knowing secondary creator who improves upon the world as he “goes along.”6 Coyote’s place in Indigenous mythology generally falls before the creation of humans, reflecting the common understanding among Native populations of coyotes as fundamental components of the environment.7 Other cultures view Coyote in a much more negative light. For example, in the Navajo and Pueblo traditions, Coyote is associated with witchcraft and the characteristics of witches, including sexual excess, greed, meanness, and lack of self-control.8

In most Native cultures, regardless of the value judgements cast upon Coyote, he is regarded as a character reflective of human nature, and he is often invoked to demonstrate how one should behave in social situations, either through negative examples, or by exhibiting moral behaviors. Unlike some deities (such as the Judeo-Christian God), Coyote is far from infallible, exhibiting a whole host of natural human flaws like greed, rudeness, lust, and mischievousness.9 In folktales, Coyote is portrayed as a hero, but also as a trickster who initiates conflict and often gets his comeuppance. The main purpose of this portrayal of Coyote is to share moral lessons across generations, but the apparent connection between Coyote and human nature is key to understanding the native relationship with coyotes as well as their perception of the interconnectedness between humans, the environment, and the divine. In many Native American cultures, the boundaries between humans, animals, and gods are unclear. Unlike Judeo-Christian faiths, where humans, animals, and the divine are strictly separate, in Native American cultures there are no such boundaries. According to this view, there is little distinction between the natural and the supernatural. Coyotes, just like all other components of the natural world, are identified as material manifestations which derive their spiritual energy from a divine source.10 In accordance with this worldview, Native American cultures generally do not view humans as fundamentally separate from the natural world. This allows for the opportunity for reflection upon human nature and society through observations of the natural world. The invocation of Coyote as a representation of human nature demonstrates the eerie familiarity that Native American cultures identified in coyotes. Humans and coyotes are so similar that the divine Coyote character is used to illustrate human nature through folk stories. The sharp intelligence and stubborn perseverance of coyotes is reminiscent of humans. This similarity was not only recognized by Native American peoples, but actively incorporated into their culture.

Although coyotes were already familiar to the Native Americans that inhabited the continent, our modern conception of the animal is particularly influenced by the development of European scientific knowledge regarding the coyote. The first document confirming interactions between coyotes and Europeans was published in 1651 by Francisco Hernandez, who described the physical and behavioral characteristics of the animal in “Concerning the Coyotl, or Indian Fox.”11 Over the next century, the Spanish understanding of the coyote quickly developed as coyotes established themselves more and more as prevalent components of Central American ecology. In one vivid entry, Spanish historian Francisco Javier Clavijero describes coyotes as “similar to the wolf in its voracity, to the fox in its cunning, to the dog in its shape, and in other propensities to the jackal… but it is undoubtedly different from all of them.”12 The next major scientific development regarding the European understanding of coyotes took place in modern day South Dakota in 1804, where explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began to observe small, unfamiliar canines. After shooting and examining one of them, it was determined that this was a new species not previously encountered by Europeans.13

The primary (and most influential) response to the coyote was puzzlement. No one was sure how to classify this new animal, which seemed akin to wolves and jackals but exhibited unique qualities that confirmed the coyote was a novel species. Confident that he had discovered a previously undocumented species, Clark named the animals “prairie wolves.”14 The confusion that surrounded the European perception of coyotes became a key component in the early development of the modern human-coyote relationship. Unlike Native American populations, which had interacted with coyotes for thousands of years and developed deeply held views on the animal derived from religious beliefs, folk stories, and personal experiences, Europeans approached coyotes with a blank slate. The initial confusion regarding the classification of the coyote continued to rage among scientists and scholars, who disagreed on whether the animal was a wolf, a jackal, or a new species entirely. Thomas Say, an American naturalist who studied Great Plains ecology years after Lewis and Clark, is generally credited with introducing the coyote into common scientific discourse as an entirely new animal. Although during his time he was unable to sufficiently prove the coyote was not a subspecies of wolf or jackal (allowing the debate to continue), scientific inquiry since then has demonstrated he was correct in his assertion.15

The confusion surrounding the classification of coyotes and insufficient preconceived notions about them left people puzzled as to how they should think about the coyote. Following their discovery by Europeans, coyotes enjoyed a long period of relative anonymity wherein their existence was known, but no further study of them was conducted and a commonly accepted stereotype about them had yet to form.16 This grace period for the coyote ended rather abruptly when Mark Twain published Roughing It in 1872. In the book, Twain delivers a piercing description of coyotes in which he paints them as obnoxious, nasty, cowardly, and deceitful. He frames coyotes as repulsive and makes them out to be not only unappealing but actively malicious, saying that they have “a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery,” “a furtive and evil eye,” and “a general slinking expression all over.”17 This scathing characterization from an esteemed author like Twain, at a time when most people had yet to form any concrete opinion about coyotes, did incredible damage to the widely held perception of the animal. Where once coyotes were viewed with mildly intrigued indifference, now they were considered troublemaking pests that should be exterminated. Towards the end of the nineteenth century (and through much of the twentieth century), coyotes were generally viewed even more negatively than wolves and calls to exterminate the animal gained traction. Even respected conservationists and naturalists, such as John Burrows and William Temple Hornaday, agreed that coyotes should be killed wherever possible, encouraging people to put out strychnine poison or shoot them on sight.18 Importantly, however, despite all the dire warnings and fear-mongering regarding the danger presented by coyotes, no scientific research on coyotes had ever actually been done. It was assumed that coyotes, like wolves, hunted big game and posed a direct threat to both agricultural and urban communities.19

The vitriol and animosity directed at coyote populations continued well into the twentieth century, and to some extent continues to this day. According to most Americans, coyotes were not simply pests, but horrible vermin to be despised. The hatred for coyotes extended beyond agricultural concerns and seeped into the national psyche. Eventually, killing coyotes came to be viewed as a patriotic duty.20 Nevertheless, coyote populations remained resilient in the face of persecution, and by the turn of the twentieth century people were getting frustrated with the lack of progress being made. During this time, the Bureau of Biological Survey had been decimating the North American wolf population at the behest of the agricultural community. Wolves are rigidly social animals that rely on cooperation to take down the big game that serves as their primary food source. Unlike coyotes, which have the capacity to alter their behavior to respond to environmental challenges, wolves are relatively predictable and therefore easier to cull. One of the main reasons that the Bureau pivoted its attention to coyotes in the 1920s was that with the wolf population significantly reduced, coyotes had started to take the place that wolves had previously occupied in the environment.21 With their primary canid competitor removed from the equation, coyotes began to fuse into larger packs and take down big game (and occasionally kill sheep or calves). Additionally, the removal of wolves allowed coyotes to spread out farther across the continent than ever before.

The Bureau of Biological Survey was recruited to totally eradicate coyotes, which had by the late 1920s been misguidedly designated the “arch predator” of the continent.22 To do this, the Bureau established the Eradication Methods Laboratory to develop poisons like strychnine, as it had been previously established that blanket poisoning was the most efficient way to kill as many coyotes as possible.23 In 1931 Congress passed the Animal Damage Control Act, which appropriated $10 million to the Bureau of Biological Survey to be used to remove coyotes from the face of the continent. Between the years of 1947 and 1956, approximately 6.5 million coyotes were killed using this method.24 In addition to poison, hunters were encouraged to kill as many coyotes as they could. One practice the Bureau encouraged was “den hunting,” wherein hunters located coyote dens during the springtime and killed all the pups before they grew up.25 The sustained campaign against coyotes persisted for decades, resulting in what has been called “the most epic campaign of persecution against any animal in North American history.”26 Nevertheless, despite millions of dollars and decades of sustained effort, coyotes continued to persist.

For the vast majority of their history, coyotes were relegated to the western two-thirds of the North American continent due to ecological conditions, the availability of prey, and competition with other predators. Around the turn of the twentieth century, however, coyote populations began to spread out farther south and east than ever before. There are several key ecological factors that allowed for this unprecedentedly rapid expansion, most of which are directly related to human actions.27 One of these factors, as previously explored, was the rapid decline in the grey wolf population. The concerted effort to decimate coyotes’ main competitor allowed them access to more territory and prey. Another equally important consideration was the massive ecological transformation that came with the human push for more land suitable for agriculture. To achieve this, humans embarked on a massive deforestation campaign, razing millions of acres to convert forest areas into flatlands that could accommodate agriculture.28 As an unintended consequence of flattening such a wide swathe of land, humans created the perfect environment for coyote populations to expand into. Having evolved on the wide, flat expanse of the Great Plains, coyotes thrive in exactly the type of environment that humans need for agriculture. The combination of the reduced wolf population and the increase in suitable territory allowed coyotes to expand farther and more rapidly than ever before. In addition to creating more suitable territory for coyotes and removing their competitors, humans also provided a consistent food source in the form of livestock, rodents, small animals, and myriad of other snacks and scraps that human settlements produce. While coyotes have always lived in close proximity to human settlements, ecological conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century led to a drastic increase in the prevalence of coyotes in urban and suburban areas.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the midst of a massive, human-caused ecological shift that sharply reduced the populations of many other North American mammal species, coyotes were thriving more than any other time in history.29 Coyotes were particularly suited to succeed despite the prolonged campaign by the U.S. government to exterminate them, due to the ecological factors discussed above and because of their unique adaptive capabilities and wily survivalism. During the evolution of modern coyotes, wolves and other large canid species consistently harassed them. In response, they developed several evolutionary mechanisms that allow coyote populations to adapt under pressure, and it was these mechanisms that led to their success during their persecution in the twentieth century. Their fission/fusion social capability gave coyotes the ability to survive various situations.30 When a population was under duress from threats such as blanket poison or den hunting, they could employ fission to reduce their vulnerability, and if they found themselves in a more stable environment without threats from humans or competitors, they could fuse into packs.31 This adaptation played a crucial role in coyotes’ ability to expand across the continent, occupying countless ecological niches under a variety of circumstances.

In addition to fission/fusion, coyotes have another evolutionary mechanism that allows their populations to stay relatively stable. When a particular population of coyotes is pressured, the litter sizes in that population increase to as many as twelve to sixteen pups, and when populations stabilize, litter sizes go back down to the average size of five to six. When coyotes howl and yip to each other, they are taking a biological “census.” If they don’t hear responding howls from other coyotes in the area, it triggers an “autogenic response” that makes them produce larger litters.32 This mechanism has played a vital role in the continued success of coyote populations since the Pleistocene Era, when they were able to overcome harassment from wolves and other large competitors by supplementing their numbers with larger litters. It was this same evolutionary strategy that allowed coyotes to continue thriving through the twentieth century in the face of relentless persecution. Despite the millions of individuals killed in the extermination campaign, over time coyote populations remained relatively steady. According to author and historian Dan Flores, “you can reduce the numbers of coyotes in a given area by 70%, but by the next summer their population will be back to the original number[NR1].”33 For this reason, while other North American mammal populations were receding in the face of disruptive human action, coyote populations stayed consistent.

And so, despite the best efforts of human populations over many decades of a sustained extermination campaign, coyotes are now thriving more than ever before. Displaced by human activity, coyotes have managed to spread out and occupy more territory, expanding across the North American continent. Due to their incredible versatility, they have been able to successfully establish themselves in a plethora of different environments, both constructed and natural (taking into account the huge impact of human action on natural environments). Coyotes can now be found in farmlands, deserts, forests, plains, cities, and suburbs, employing either fission or fusion behaviors depending on their surroundings.34 With coyote populations still firmly entrenched in new habitats across the continent, humans have largely come to the conclusion that eradicating coyotes is not an option. National poisoning campaigns came to an end in the 1970s, and in recent years scientists have started to study how humans can most effectively approach the issue of coexistence with coyotes. This is not to say that coyotes aren’t still being killed; upwards of 80,000 coyotes are shot via aerial gunning annually.35 However, there is no longer any hope of entirely eradicating the species, nor is there any expectation that these culling efforts will make a marked difference on coyote populations. Instead, scientists are looking into how humans should best approach our relationship with coyotes, because we now know that they are not going anywhere.

Moving forward, we must address some contemporary problems presented by coyotes and some long-standing problems that must be approached in a new way. One of the oldest and most pervasive issues between humans and coyotes is the predation of livestock. It is easy for coyotes to obtain a quick meal out of a lamb or two, presenting a huge challenge to farmers to this day. The classic techniques of laying out poison and shooting on sight, however, have been demonstrated to be ineffective strategies. In response to the realization that coyotes are here to stay, scientists began working on alternate methods for preventing loss of livestock. One such tactic is conditioned taste aversion, a non-lethal method to reduce the frequency of coyotes killing livestock. This method involves consistently lacing bait in a particular area with lithium chloride (which coyotes find distasteful) over a period of time, thus teaching coyotes to avoid seeking food.36 Although this tactic has yet to be widely adopted (most people still prefer simply shooting coyotes on sight), it has shown promising results. The preference for killing coyotes rather than using non-lethal methods speaks to another longstanding issue in the human-coyote relationship, that of perception.37 Since Mark Twain wrote Roughing It in 1872, humans have had a largely negative view of coyotes, and the extermination campaign at the turn of the twentieth century solidified coyotes as villainous in most people’s minds. This problem has actually been getting better over the course of the last several decades due to a phenomenon labelled “coyote consciousness” wherein the commonly held social perception of coyotes is growing more favorable.38 This growing consciousness is mainly the result of popular culture and media. For example, beginning in the 1960s, Disney produced six films that painted coyotes in a positive light. Disney was (and still is) a highly influential media company, and their portrayal of coyotes as protagonists made a significant difference in the public perception of the animal. Popular characters like Wile E. Coyo[NR2] [NR3] te have continued to influence how the public views coyotes to the point where Mark Twain’s description of the ugly and nasty coyote is no longer the widely held perception.39

Nevertheless, the continued proximity of humans to coyotes has produced new problems which must be addressed, especially in urban and suburban areas. Because coyotes have settled into human habitats such as cities and towns (where people are far less likely to shoot them on sight), they have grown used to seeing humans as relatively non-aggressive animals, and reassociating them with food-rich environments. This habituation to human beings has caused several problems.40 The changing attitudes about coyotes have certainly been beneficial, but they run the risk of obfuscating the inherently wild nature of the coyote. Humans feeding coyotes, both intentionally and unintentionally, has had a huge impact on the habituation process. Intentional feeding is an infrequent but damaging occurrence that leads to coyotes following people in search of food.41 Thus keeping them in close proximity to human settlements.42 Both situations lead coyotes to lose their fear of humans and instead become attracted to human activity. This results in increased frequencies of coyote attacks on humans (although these remain rare), as well as more instances of coyotes preying upon household pets.43 Although a fully effective solution to this issue has yet to be reached, the coexistence between humans and coyotes continues on as both species attempt to come to terms with how best they can meet their needs in a shared environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has abruptly altered the dynamic between humans and coyotes. Due to the necessity of social distancing, streets and public spaces (especially in urban areas) that are usually bustling with activity have been largely vacant. This has allowed coyotes, who generally sleep during the day and come out at night when people have gone to sleep, to be more active during the day. Coyotes have always resided in close proximity to human settlements, as previously explored, but even with increasing levels of habituation, coyotes generally maintain a healthy distance from the chaos of human operations. This year, however, the empty streets have allowed coyotes to roam freely far more often than they could in the past. Locally, this new dynamic has become very prominent. In the Bay Area, coyote sightings have drastically increased in recent months, as has the frequency of coyotes eating household pets.44 Coyotes are opportunists by nature, and they are taking advantage of their newfound mobility to seek food in new places. In the same way as the ecological transformation that came with agriculturalization allowed them to expand into new territory, the COVID-19 pandemic has emboldened coyotes to spend more time occupying places that would have previously been dangerous, such as city streets and public squares. When Sonoma State University had its first coyote sighting on campus, the reaction from the school was in accordance with the general sentiment expressed by the residents of the Bay Area in the face of increased coyote activity.45 Coyotes are cunning and curious animals, and given this opportunity to claim more territory, then have expanded more boldly into human habitats.

Coyotes have been a fixture in North American ecology since before humans arrived on the continent, and due to their incredible intelligence and adaptability, they will likely remain on the continent for at least as long as we do (barring unforeseen disaster). The relationship between our two species has undergone some major changes, particularly with the arrival of European humans to the continent. For their entire existence, coyotes have been primed to respond to ecological pressures and take advantage of any opportunities presented to them. The arrival and eventual expansion of Europeans certainly placed extreme ecological pressures on coyotes, but it also provided them with some unique opportunities. While most other large mammal species on the continent were dying out, coyotes used the human domination of North America to their advantage, spreading across the continent at a faster rate than ever before. Even while humans conducted a decades-long extermination campaign intent on wiping coyotes off the face of the continent, coyotes as a population continued to thrive. Coyotes have taken advantage of infrastructure provided by humans, living in cities, towns, farmlands, and any other natural or constructed habitat that they can find. Today, although the culling of coyotes still goes on, humans have finally realized that coyotes are here to stay.

Julie Meachen and Joshua Samuels, “Evolution in coyotes (Canis latrans) in response to the megafaunal extinctions” (Chicago: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
Meachen and Samuels, “Evolution in coyotes”
Simon Worrall, “How the Most Hated Animal in America Outwitted Us All” (National Geographic) 2016
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Dan Flores, Coyote America (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 9-10
Flores, Coyote America, 37
Guy Cooper, “Coyote in Navajo Religion and Cosmology,” Brandon University (1984)
Cooper, “Religion and Cosmology”
Cooper, “Religion and Cosmology”
Christine Heyrman, “Native American Religion in Early America,” National Humanities Center (2020)
Flores, Coyote America, 57
Ibid., 58
Flores, Coyote America, 55
Ibid., 55
Ibid., 59-68
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Jim Jenke, “Mark Twain’s Description of a Coyote,” Old West (2011)
Dan Flores, “Coyote: An American Original,” Wild West (2013)
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Flores, Coyote America, 84
Ibid., 101
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Ibid.
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Stanley Young and Harold Dobyns, “Den Hunting as a Means of Coyote Control,” USDA (1937)
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
James Hody and Roland Kays, “Mapping the expansion of coyotes (Canis latrans) across North and Central America,” Zookeys (2018)
Dave Merrill and Lauren Leatherby, “Here’s How America Uses its Land,” Bloomberg (2018)
Hody and Kays, “Mapping the expansion”
Hody and Kays, “Mapping the expansion”
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Ibid.
Stuart Ellins, Living with Coyotes: Managing Predators Humanely Using Food Aversion Conditioning (University of Texas Press, 2005) 12
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Ellins, Living with Coyotes, 110
Ibid., 113
Worrall, “Most Hated Animal in America”
Ibid.
Robert Timm, “A History of Urban Coyote Problems,” (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2007) 284
Timm, “Urban Coyote,” 277
Ibid., 277
Ibid., 284
Tony Hicks, “Increased Coyote Sightings Have Residents Fear for Pets,” SFGate (2020)
Ibid.