Above: two-month old pups in early June playing together when left alone; and playing with Dad when he’s there. Photos taken shortly after their move.
I was able to observe this coyote family move their pups when they were two months old — moving the pups at this age is not uncommon: they’ve been fully weaned by this time. This was very exciting for me because I was able to see Mom carry each youngster, one by one, in her mouth over 1/4th mile away. Half of the pups were moved at night, one right after the next, and the other half a full week later during the daytime — in fact, at noon! Essentially, for that week in-between, her pups were divided between two den locations about 1/4th mile apart. After the second *batch* of pups was moved, all pups again were all together in one location — for a while. At least that is what I thought.
But the *divided litter* story didn’t end there because one pup it turns out had remained at, or returned immediately to, the original den site. He was there alone for several weeks without any of his siblings, albeit with both parents coming and going regularly to be with him. At two months of age, I wondered: had he/she traveled there with a parent again, or had he/she remained there in the first place?
The initial move, when the pups were just two months old, of course was a decision made entirely by the mother coyote: she carried each pup. But after the initial moving, I’ve wondered if it was the pups’ or Mom’s decision as to where they stayed? Several weeks after that, and over the course of the next six weeks, some pups would turn up at the old home where they joined the one who seems to have never left, and some remained at the new home. In other words, the litter was now permanently divided between two locations, with pups seemingly having access to both, but fairly consistently remaining at one of the locations. When they travelled between the two locations, youngsters did so inevitably before dawn and after dusk.
After the Mom’s initially moving the pups, the choice of where to hang out during daylight hours was apparently influenced by immediate circumstances. For example, sometimes I would see a pup attempt to leave a location but then become thwarted by the appearance of a person or a dog, so that youngster simply turned around and remained wherever s/he was for the duration of the daylight hours. Pups at both locations were left to themselves for long periods of time during the day. In fact, parents often hung out at totally different locations from where the pups were, even though they were regularly visited by one or both parents. I wonder if the entire family ever gets together anymore as a whole?
During the timeframe between two and four months of age, Dad would regularly come to guard and play with the pups at each location, sometimes for as long as an entire afternoon, whereas Mom spent her daylight resting time at only the more hidden location.
Now, at four months of age, their range of traveling has more than doubled, and this happened rather suddenly, with some pups not returning to either of these earlier two den sites. They’ve been hiding out during daylight hours in out-of-the-way locations over 1/2 mile away and often alone, including in backyards and clumps of trees, to unite with other family members when the protective cover of dusk sets in again. If you see one pup wandering about alone at dawn or dusk, this is probably his/her situation. And here, I’m wondering if this early moving of the pups might encourage early dispersal? I’ve seen families where the den was not moved and noticed dispersal not taking place for sometimes up to two years.
Regarding their yips and howls: With pups distributed between a 1/4th mile or longer area, it’s logical that their howling and vocalizations are a family communication, possibly: “Where are you? How are you? or “We’re ready to get going!”” This makes sense within one territory where youngsters are fairly far apart. But I’ve also documented two territories — two totally different families — which are right across a roadway from each other, the dens themselves being only about 1/4th mile apart. In this case, howling would serve to proclaim their separate ownership there, and would be more of an oppositional type of communication rather than a family chat. More usually, dens on separate territories are over a mile apart: at this distance, I think howling can be heard only if conditions are right: if the evening is still, if the wind is traveling towards the listeners, if there are no sound barriers such as hills in the way. Coyotes’ huge ears of course can pick up what we can’t even fathom — but I wonder how much that is? And if one mile is within their range of hearing?
