Ritual Greeting?

26 Nov 2010 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, family interactions, greetings

Ritual greetings are used in coyote packs to confirm the social order. Here a young coyote approaches the Alpha, who is his mother, to greet her with kisses and muzzle rubs. Note that his ears are always back. She seems to only accept it and to put up with it — she does not return the behavior in any way. In fact, the young one did not approach with his usual wiggly joyfulness — maybe because that had already happened an hour earlier?

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About My Site and Me: This website reflects my almost 20 years of intense, careful, and dedicated field-work — empirical observations — all photo-documented without interfering or changing coyotes’ behaviors. Be welcome here, enjoy, and learn! I am a self-taught naturalist and independent coyote researcher.

Coyotes reappeared in San Francisco in 2002 after many years of absence, and people are still in the dark about them. This site is to help bring light to their behavior and offer simple guidelines for easy coexistence.

My information comes from my own first-hand observations of our very own coyotes here in San Francisco. What I’m presenting to you is the reality of their everyday individual lives. They have not been studied or observed so thoroughly by anyone else. Mine is not generic information, nor second-hand.

Note that none of the coyotes I document and photograph is “anonymous” to me: I know (or knew) each one of them, and can tell you about their personalities, histories, and their family situations. There have been over 100 of them, distributed among over twenty families, all in San Francisco. Images and true stories have the power to raise awareness and change perspective.

Contact: Janet@coyoteyipps.com

© All information and photos in my postings come from my own original and first-hand documentation work which I am happy to share, with permission and with properly displayed credit: ©janetkessler/coyoteyipps.com.

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