Aging. From what I’ve seen in the urban environment of San Francisco, coyotes who reach 11 and 12 years of age are at the upper limit of their lifespans. Compare this to their lifespan in captivity which is about 14 to 16 years, or to their lifespan in the wild-wild, which I’m told is only 3 to 5 years. By the time they are old they may be on a second mate who would be younger than they are. They will have gained greying brows and a more worn look to their faces. Bones and muscles become worn out, so it takes them longer to get up, and as they get up you can see the stiffness and some unsteadiness that wasn’t there before, until they start moving: it’s harder for me to detect an aging coyote when they are moving. Fur, of course, hides a lot of the wear and tear they have accumulated, the same way that clothing hides it in humans.
Claimed territories. Some of these oldsters remain on their claimed territories right until the very end of their lives and then the territory is acquired by default by their offspring and/or mates: these territories can be owned by the same genetic families over many generations. On the other hand, in other territorial situations, the death of a mate might contribute to an inability for the surviving mate to hold on to a territory. Aging in itself is a weakening factor, leading an oldster to abandon his/her territory voluntarily. I’ve wondered if abandoning a territory might also be related to the end of a coyote’s ability to reproduce: this is pure conjecture on my part — I have no proof of this, it just crossed my mind. Territorial intruders who appear off and on in all territories are normally fended off fairly easily by a mated pair. However, without a mate and with growing weakness due to age or possibly illness, a territorial confrontation, or even a battle could ensue and the weaker claimants would be forced to leave. This happened at the Presidio in 2019.
What happens to the coyotes who leave or have been driven out from their territories? I seldom see them again, or if I do, it’s only briefly before they are gone forever. Because I never see them again, I am unaware of how their lives continue, if indeed they do continue. Their old territories become occupied by the newcomers and life goes on.
Interlopers. But sometimes, the displaced coyote who once owned a territory becomes an interloper who I’ve been able to follow, even if only sporadically. An interloper is a coyote who has no territory to call his own anymore, but who lives in the interstices between other claimed territories. Unless you know the individual coyote, you wouldn’t know his situation. The older or more injury-compromised these coyotes are, the less likely that they can take and hold onto a new territory. Such a coyote is Ash.
Before I go on with Ash, I want to mention that at the other end of the life cycle, dispersing yearlings all become interlopers until they find their own territories. Both yearling loners and yearlings who have found mates along the way and are still looking for territories are in this situation. They live and roam quietly on the fringes and interstices between territories and pass through claimed territories as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, assessing mostly through smells what the situation is in these territories: through smell, they can tell what coyotes have been around and how regularly they’ve been around and probably their reproductive condition and much more: they would be able to tell right off if one of the alphas is no longer around. If they find a vacant niche, moving in can be easy, but if all territories are taken, if conditions are right, they might actually fight for the territory. Those that don’t find territories after dispersing here in San Francisco appear to move south and out of the city in their continued search for a home, and along the way many are killed by cars [per a three-year, radio-collar study by the Presidio from 2015].
You’ll recall my posting about Ash: https://coyoteyipps.com/2023/08/23/ash-aging-injury-decline/. He left his territory because of an injury. I don’t know how he got the injury, and I don’t know what happened to his mate, but another coyote pair are now the alphas in the territory he left behind — and it appears to be a son of his but I’m not absolutely sure about this. As I wrote in that previous posting about Ash, I didn’t think Ash was going to last very long without his territory because he was getting along in years and had an extremely compromising injury which turned him into a *tripod* coyote, but he has proven me wrong. Since I wrote that post, he has appeared in various spots around the south and center part of the city, and I actually saw him in my own neighborhood at 5:30 a couple of mornings ago. He has been without a territory for well over a year now.
In fact, I’m wondering if the city’s interloper population might be growing — if there are more like him.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about another interloper, a strapping young fellow, who intruded into a claimed territory: https://coyoteyipps.com/2023/10/22/intruder-dynamics-at-work/. This is a coyote I didn’t recognize, but his youth made me think that he was dispersing and looking for both a territory and a mate. I watched the fellow as he sat very still and listened to the howling chorus of the resident family. That must have summed up the situation for him because he left and never came back.
Two years ago I watched an interloper move into a territory where the alpha male had died of old age. He sired a litter, but apparently there were compatibility issues with the remaining alpha female there — it was very obvious she didn’t like him. When the pups were just four months old, that fellow left. The next year, he was the alpha in another territory, this time remaining for a full year. But after a year, he is now gone and I’ve not seen him since then. I can only reflect on the huge difference between this fellow and the family who has been tied to their territory for multiple generations.
And I’ve written about what I called a *Gypsy* coyote pair that actually picked up and moved across the city a couple of times, each time claiming and becoming the owners of the new territory they had moved to for several years where they raised their pups. Eventually this coyote pair ended up divorcing: yes, that also happens.
Who, in the way of coyotes, gets a territory, and who is excluded? Within urban areas, as I suppose within any area, coyotes gain advantages over conspecifics based on luck, being in the right place at the right time, physical size or strength, force of personality, ties to the family territory they were born into (generational territories), intelligence and a savvy nature when it comes to dealing with other coyotes — the same kind of the advantages humans have in moving forward with their lives and gaining choice territories. Less advantaged conspecifics are left with less advantageous territories or no territories. And competitors such as foxes have been pushed to the periphery of the city. Nature is not fair.
Meanwhile, back at Ash’s old homestead — a territory where he had been the alpha for years, where he had been through a couple of mates and raised many litters — the territory is now owned by another alpha pair who had a litter this year — the alpha male appears to be Ash’s son, though I need to confirm this. Of interest — and I bring this up because of the very different situations each coyote finds him/herself in — I notice that there’s a third coyote, a yearling, who appears to have been adopted into the family. Yes, adoptions take place, especially of injured or weak youngsters: I usually see it for under a month when a youngster is dispersing, but could it last longer? This yearling has been allowed into the territory, but does not hang around the territorial claimants as far as I have seen: my prediction is that he will soon move on: he’ll become an interloper himself. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn-havfPAwG/. From what I’ve seen, owning a territory confers much more survivability on coyotes.
So, every coyote and coyote family situation I’ve observed is different — no different from the way it is in humans. I’m told this individuality is due to our being generalists and therefore having amazing adaptability: we and they are not meant to survive in just one type of environmental niche or situation, as opposed to animal specialists who require unique situations and habitats for survival. This adaptability allows different potential traits to be developed in each of us as needed or sometimes as desired. So all generalizations regarding coyotes need to be qualified with many exceptions. The situations I describe here are ones I have seen; I’m sure there are many more variations. For more, you can type into the blog search box: territories, intruders, interlopers, dispersals.
© All information, maps, and photos in my postings come from my own original and first-hand documentation work (except where indicated) which I am happy to share, with permission and with properly displayed credit: ©janetkessler/coyoteyipps.com.
