Coyote Yipps

List of coyotes I talk about in this posting:

• Maeve (b~2006): mother and then mate to Silver (b. 2009), mother to Chert, Gumnut and Pinecone (b. 2013),
• Silver (b. 2009): brother to Brunno (b. 2009), then mate to Maeve (b. ~2006), father to Chert, Gumnut & Pinecone (b.2015); then mate to Chert: he was Chert’s FIRST mate,
• Chert (b. 2013), daughter to Maeve and Silver, then mate to Silver
• Gumnut (b. 2013) brother to Chert, son of Maeve and Silver
• Sparks (b. 2018) son to Silver and Chert, became alpha in the Presidio, 2nd mate to Wired.
• Rookie (b. ?) became Chert’s mate when Silver died in 2021, but their union was shortlived: he was Chert’s SECOND mate.
• Scowl (b. 2019), son of Silver and Chert, brother to Sparks, became Chert’s THIRD mate
• Tufted (b ?, young at the time) passed through quickly as a suitor.
• Archer (b. 2019) passed through for several days. He also has an interesting story because he and his mate uncoupled, and now he has a new mate in his old territory, whereas his previous mate (and mother) shifted her territory and formed a pair with another son of her.
• Rags (b. ?) was a suitor who was integrated into Chert’s family for several weeks before a new suitor and Chert kicked him out.
• Tawny (b. ?) is now Chert’s FOURTH mate (not including Rags who spent many weeks with her).

Most coyote advocates I’ve spoken with still believe coyotes mate for life. Indeed, this is all I ever saw for many years, and I’m still seeing examples of it. But over time, I’ve come to know more and more mated pairs who have not stuck together.

My first encounter with this was with Monte which you can read about here. Note that he is in a totally different family and territory than Chert and the coyotes I’m addressing here. Since that time, I’ve encountered multiple examples of mate changes, some appearing to have explanations, some I can speculate on possible explanations, and some I don’t know why the change occurred. I’ll eventually write about some more of these, but here I’ll concentrate on Chert’s changing mates. As I describe her changing situations, I’ll interject some interesting tidbits of behavior or information I saw, just because they are interesting, even though they aren’t totally related to mate changes except very peripherally.

Chert was one of three pups born to Silver and Maeve in 2013. Maeve, her mother, had lost her original mate to rat poison and had remained without a mate, but with two young sons. As the sons got older, the rivalry between these 2 for their mother’s attention and affection was blatantly obvious, with spats occurring more and more as time passed. In the end, Silver drove his brother, Brunno, out and thereby acquired his mother — Maeve — as his mate.

The first (and only) litter they — Maeve and Silver — shared consisted of three pups born in 2013: Chert, Gumnut, and Pinecone. In September, when the pups were a mere 7 months old, Maeve (mom) started attacking the female pup, Chert, and smelling her reproductive area. It was almost as though she was jealous of this pup, the only female she had produced. Her oldest son, turned mate, and father to Chert, would walk by as the mother went after her daughter: he stared and looked perplexed as this happened but he did not interfere.

It’s shortly after these thrashings began that Maeve herself suddenly vanished and I never saw her again. Was she hit by a car or did she leave by choice? If she left by choice, was it because of Chert’s existence? All her other pups to this point had been males. My thought is that they posed no reproductive competition to her, present or future. But Chert was a female. Might Maeve’s intent in thrashing her have been to make Chert disperse early? OR, maybe she was preparing Chert to become “behaviorally sterile” by instilling a kind of fear into her? “Behaviorally sterile” is the condition of younger females in a family, assuring only one litter in the family and on the territory: that of the alpha female parent: territory sizes aren’t meant to support more than this.

Whatever the reasons, they became moot when Maeve disappeared/vanished when Chert was 7 months old. Silver, her father, carried on now without Maeve, raising 3 and then just 2 of the pups when the 3rd one was driven out at one year of age: that was Pinecone. The two who remained were now Chert and her brother Gumnut. These were best buddies, joyful playmates, and inseparable. I thought their close relationship was going to bridge them into a mated pair, but by 2 years of age, Gumnut had become a reproductive competitor for Silver who had his own eyes set on his daughter as a mate for himself. Gumnut exhibited absolute subservience to Silver in his quest to remain close to Chert, but it was obvious to Silver that he was preferred by Chert, and Silver wasn’t going to have that. Gumnut was driven out by Silver with punches, bites and constant putdowns which increased over time. So here is an example of the female not choosing her mate: her mate imposed himself on her, and probably since he was her father, she felt no options but to abide by his will. Also, by just two years of age, and still very much a playful youngster, she probably had no idea what was going on. Coyotes, like us, have to learn about life, mostly from experience.

Chert and Silver grew into a very stable relationship that lasted for six years and produced six litter of pups. Their litters ranged in size from one to five. One of their pups from 2019 became the alpha male in the Presidio after the initial alpha male at that location disappeared, I think he was hit by a car. Sparks was not in a position to have *fought* the previous male there — Sparks had a crooked leg — his leg had broken and healed incorrectly: because of this, he doesn’t put himself into compromising situations.

So Silver, from here on, remained “mated for life” for the rest of his life. He very obviously died of old age at 11 years of age: he was gray, arthritic, and slow by that time and then one day he no longer appeared. He had been able to fully raise his last litter with Chert in 2020: he disappeared in January of 2021.

Chert and Silver’s litter before the last one — the litter of five that was born in 2019 — had four males and one female. One of the males was Sparks who, as I’ve said, moved to the Presidio where he became the alpha male and still is. The other significant male of that litter for our story was Scowl. Scowl had remained on the territory as a yearling and helped with Chert’s 2020 litter and also helped defend the territory. In 2021, when his father died, he was only two years old and not really old enough to move into the alpha position there.

That February there was a lot of howling and commotion which revealed a newcomer male suitor had moved into the territory: this was Rookie. This fellow would have smelled the absence of a dominant male’s pheromones/hormones which would have attracted him, in addition to Chert’s own attracting female hormones: it was mating season.

Rookie didn’t seem totally welcomed by the remaining family, but I saw Chert lead him away from the commotion, possibly to prevent any fighting. Rookie remained as Chert’s second mate, at least long enough to sire and raise a family of five pups for four months. Not only that, had he sired a litter with Chert’s daughter? She, too, was lactating, but the thought occurred to me that she might have been a wet nurse: we’re waiting for the DNA results to see what the situation was. It was obvious he was the father of Chert’s new litter: most had light or blue eyes, as he did. But even after six months (63 days of gestation and 4 months of raising the pups), it was obvious that he was not an accepted part of the family. Chert actually spent her time grooming Scowl intensely: it looked as though she was inviting/pleading with him to become her mate. Rookie saw and felt this — he had remained an outsider. By July, he had moved on.

By the way, I found Rookie on a different territory, in a different park, in late 2021 where he formed a mated pair with another female and produced a litter of five in 2022. But that union, also, only lasted one season. It made me wonder if some males were just drifters who took advantage of vacant niches for single seasons. All other pairs seem to have stuck together at least for several seasons.

So, as expected, Scowl, at the age of three, became Chert’s third mate in 2022, moving into the step-dad position and helping to raise Rookie and Chert’s offspring who were born in early 2021. Inbreeding has been extensive in Chert’s family — remember that Scowl was Chert’s son. Dr. Ben Sacks of UC Davis has said that the inbreeding should not be a problem, and as far as I have seen, it has not been. Chert and Scowl together then produced litters in 2022 and in 2023. But of interest, I actually saw Scowl on the next territory over in early 2023 sniffing and mounting a two year old female who had not yet dispersed from that territory. I wondered if the dispersal instinct was stronger in him than the pair-bond. But he returned to father a litter of three in 2023.

Scowl in 2024 headed off to a new territory and a new mate, two-year-old Bonus: I guess it was time to move on, either that, or he was kicked out of his old place. He had been wandering beyond his territory for over a year, so I think it was just time to disperse for him, something he had never done.

Then, in January of 2024, Scowl disappeared from Chert’s territory. My eyes popped out of my head when I saw him on yet another territory, with his nose sniffing another two-year-old female. I spotted them repeatedly at this location. I had to ask myself, why did he move away? Whose decision was this? Had he decided to leave of his own volition or had he been forced out by Chert? One of Rookie’s youngsters who had been raised by Scowl, this is a fellow named Sweet Face, had remained on the territory for three years, which is the one of the two male coyotes who remained at their birthplaces the longest. But he, too, left at this time. Scowl had been showing intense antagonism towards him in a progressively aggressive manner as time passed. Had Chert not liked this behavior? It’s a question that occurred to me, but I can’t answer it.

What I do know is that yet again, there was no viable alpha male on the territory beginning in 2024. Suddenly in February of that year, I started seeing suitors. In fact, FOUR of them came by that winter. It’s my assumption that Chert’s female reproductive odors were calling, as was the absence of alpha male marking odors on the territory.

Two additional suitors who came by in early 2024: Tufted and Archer — neither stayed long. One of them stared at the sleeping resident family for over 1/2 hour one day. The family was unaware of this, but the minute they saw (they did not smell him) him, they chased him away, and he ran off, lickety-split.

A fellow I called Tufted came by but was soon gone. Next came Archer. Archer’s is another interesting story. He was the alpha male of his territory along with his mate Amber. He actually was Amber’s son and her second mate. Why had he moved away from that situation? Again, I’m thinking that the urge to disperse might be stronger than the pair-bond. It’s Archer who remained as the alpha male on that territory but with a new female who I haven’t identified yet; whereas his mate and mother, Amber, moved to the edge of that territory with another son of hers, one born a year after Archer, where they are raising a family. So you see, to say that coyotes *mate for life* is not accurate in the coyote world.

Rags is the third suitor to come by Chert’s territory. He, in fact, stayed for a number of weeks and was accepted by Chert and her remaining offspring. He and Chert groomed each other, she allowed him to sniff by lifting her tail, she claimed him by resting her chin on his back; they would nap and sun themselves together for hours. But suddenly he was driven out: I was there to see this. New suitor Tawny had arrived, was accepted, and displaced Rags, and helped drive him out. I wondered if Tawny had been a previous relation of Chert’s? Possibly a long gone son? Coyotes change over time, and if I stop seeing one, I lose track of who it is.

So that’s where this situation stands right now. Chert is on her FOURTH mate and had a little fling with Rags right before this.

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© 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. All photos in my postings are of the individuals I’m posting about.