Coyote Yipps

In coyotes, “etiquette” — the customary code of polite behaviors among members of a group –is slowly absorbed through constant sibling and parental interactions.

In human terms, this might include not bumping the next person, not interrupting them, not hitting, not grabbing their stuff, not crowding them. And, of course, there are different degrees of what is and what is not acceptable, with sometimes just a fine line separating the one from the other. And then there’s teasing and joking that allow crossing the line “in fun”. “Rules” are all geared to respect personal space and boundaries and to prevent a defensive or antagonistic reaction. On the receiving end of another’s behavior, there are also degrees of acceptance: from returning the respect, removing oneself from a less-than polite encounter, to warnings and to all-out retaliation in kind or more. The same seems to hold for coyotes.

At 4 months: wrestling, play-biting, testing, oneupmanship is all for fun and has no meaning behind it.

With coyote pups, back even just a month ago, tugging, chewing on, tackling, pinning were all behaviors pulled out of the toybox with no real underlying meaning except for the fun of it all. Early pup interactive behavior consisted of back and forth bantering and reactions which were innocent and fun. Here, above, is a series of photos showing the fun: pell mell, tumble bumble, catch me if you can, gotcha! behavior.

By five months of age I’ve noticed a qualitative change injected into this play. Now their behavior towards each other can be testy, seemingly coming from a developing sense of personal boundaries and resulting in standing up for oneself. There is less tolerance for perpetual pushy, dominating, or too rough play.

Below are photos showing five-month-old coyote pups reacting to each other’s perceived intrusions, with warnings of various sorts. It’s not particularly intense yet at this stage, but from their gazes and expressions, you can see that there are negative feelings and an “I mean it” behind a lot of their actions now. Their actions and reactions have growing meaning for themselves and their relationships with their siblings.

At five months, there is now a qualitative difference in their play: they respond with resentment and anger to unwanted intrusiveness from another sibling.

Photos: First row, a second youngster is interested/curious about the first youngster’s focused activity. First coyote decides to quelch any intentions that second coyote has about intruding on him and stealing his find: he firmly grabs the newcomer’s snout in a perfunctory manner, telling him “no” in a much milder manner than his parents have. The *message* then continued with another perfunctory back grab to the intruder coyote: the underdog first coyote has his say about it. Of interest here, the intruding coyote remained totally chilled with this treatment — “ho hum” about it. Within seconds all seemed forgotten — but it’s never entirely forgotten and these episodes add up, just like with humans.

Middle row, notice the antagonistic facial communication. In the first photo, again there is an intruder and the first coyote is warning him off with a snarl and bared teeth: there’s something in the bushes he wants and has claimed as a second youngster shows interest in taking over. In the middle photo there’s a glare of “you’ve crossed the line” at a sibling’s body slam; and in the third photo a youngster pulls back his lips, backing away from an intruding brother who he doesn’t want to deal with.

In the bottom row you’ll see a bullying sibling dominating and pinning down a sibling, hackles up in anger at being resisted. In the second photo, a sibling lashes out intensely with bared teeth and a lunge — a sibling has crossed the personal boundary line. And lastly a bullied youngster bends over with hackles up, teeth bared, and tongue out, showing intense displeasure with being ganged up on by two brothers.

So, they are now pushing their boundaries and pushing back in order to stand up for themselves.

In past litters, I’ve seen antagonisms grow and lead to dispersals. But I’ve also seen avoidance to divert an antagonism. Siblings end up pairing up with like-energy and like-dispositions for play purposes. I’ve also seen reversal of antagonisms. They are writing their stories as they go along!

By the way, parents don’t interfere in sibling relations — siblings are left to work these out by themselves. That is . . . . until dispersal time when dominating behavior of a lingering male may be slammed down by a parent when a parent is present, even if the dominating behavior was part of play.