Contests & Winning
01 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in coyote behavior, coyotes and dogs, dog reactions to coyotes, lone vs. pack activity Tags: coyote behavior: coyote and dogs
A friend relayed a story to me which I want to re-tell. He was walking in a park in the early evening. He had taken a little-used narrow path high above the beaten trail when he saw a large brown pit-bull dash across the path ahead of him. There was no owner around. Within seconds my friend could see that the dog was chasing a coyote. And within seconds of that, the pit-bull whizzed by him again in the other direction, this time followed by a second coyote: the dog was being warded off by the coyote pack leader which was protecting the chased coyote. It is important to know that this is how alpha coyote’s react: they are protective of their pack members.
But the story didn’t end here. My friend later descended to the path below where he saw the dog, now leashed, and its owner heading out of the park. And following them from 50 feet behind were the two coyotes: they were assuring themselves that the dog was leaving the park. After the dog was gone, the coyotes ran up to the hillside and cavorted playfully. My friend thought that the coyotes might as well have been celebrating and “thumbing their noses” at the departing dog which had disturbed them.
Amusing though it might seem, contests of this sort are the basis for future antagonistic relations between dogs and coyotes. We can prevent these from ever occurring in the first place by keeping our dogs restrained in the parks which we know have coyotes. Even if the dog is kept leashed and no longer chases, the coyotes have now become alerted to this particular dog: he has been tagged as a threat. And the dog has become alerted to the coyotes as something fun to chase — he will now continually look for them: each side will want to play out the contest. Both the dog and the coyotes will feel tension if they see each other for some time to come.
More Lone Activity
11 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in coyote behavior, lone vs. pack activity
I recently wrote about the interactions of a pack, which is a coyote family, as I found them traversing a park, headed to their “home” area in the morning. It is rare to see a family together, though two of them can be seen at times. It is more common to encounter a single lone coyote.
The reason for this is that coyotes hunt individually. This is because their food source in this area consists mostly of voles and gophers: small rodents which, as food, cannot be divided up among various hunters — these are crunched and then swallowed whole. In our area it might take more than one coyote to take down a raccoon, but raccoons are not the normal prey for coyotes — they are quite large and fierce fighters. We have seen skunk carcasses, and it is possible that more than one coyote shares in this.
Pack activity does occur in other areas when smaller rodents aren’t so prevalent, and when there happen to be larger prey around. Likely candidates are young deer or unprotected young farm animals such as lambs.
