Coyote Yipps

To insure her reproductive supremacy and exclusiveness, mothers get hard on their daughters. These videos show various versions of the same thing. It can begin as early as seven months and as late as two years, and sometimes the whole process is bypassed. It may involve steely staring, body slamming, and or constant put downs — all to impose dominance and control over the younger coyote.

In the most recent video, this one at the top, the behavior actually has been going on for months, but each time there seems to be a crescendo, with Mom keeping daughter on her back for longer and longer periods of time. These put-downs occur multiple times each day. I’ve been expecting not to see the daughter after these repeated episodes, but, so far, daughter has always appeared the next day.

One reason for this might be is that she is best buddies with her brother: they exude overwhelming joy when they see each other: possibly the attraction is stronger than the repulsion behavior from Mom. Today, in fact, neither daughter or the son was around, but this has happened before, for a couple of days, and then, surprise, they can be seen trekking through their area.

If the treatment by Mom doesn’t cause daughters to actually leave, it probably serves to increase cortisol from stress, which inhibits the production of female hormones. I don’t know the biology beyond this. In this case, the youngster then would stay and help raise next years’ pups.

Another thing I’ve seen is two-year-old daughters who have not dispersed develop swollen teats. It doesn’t appear that they produce any pups, but I can’t be certain about this. In this case, they could serve as wet-nurses, helping the mother to feed the pups. I can’t think of why else their teats would be swollen and extended.

Daughter in this first video is one and a half years old. I caught the daughter approaching in still shots, so the video begins with stills until I switch over to video mode. These put-downs have been lasting longer and longer — the video of the entire put-down lasted 8 full minutes.

Daughter in this second video, below, is only 7 months old. I wondered if she were showing dominant characteristics which might have caused her mother to beat her in this fashion. Interestingly, only a week after this video was taken, Mom disappeared and never returned. Although she might have been hit by a car or had some other fatal mishap, it occurred to me that she herself decided to leave rather than deal with a daughter she knew might take over. And in fact, her daughter became the alpha on her territory for the rest of her long life: 1.5 years.

And here are move videos of the same thing:

In this next video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06O6tTP0kc], first you see younger brother taunting his older sibling. She’s not allowed to taunt back so she just defends herself. And that’s when Mom comes by and body slams her until she runs off with her tail between her legs.

This next video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mlk8b3E4DM] begins with body slams and then proceeds to steely staring by Mom. In this case, interestingly, when all was said and done, it’s Mom and Dad who left the territory because they could not make daughter leave. I’m wondering if something might have been wrong with her. Two suitors came by, but they ended up driving her out and forming a family with another female.

This video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G759qwLVI8I] is of the same coyotes as the video immediately above: Mom, two year old daughter and one year old son. I think son is simply copying Mom, and since he has her support and isn’t disciplined, he continues doing what Mom is doing: viciously attacking. Mom, of course, is attacking to drive her daughter out. In most cases, the daughter would definitely feel unwelcomed and eventually leave. Notice also the silent steely staring which is a hugely strong communication.

The purpose in all cases is to get daughter to disperse — to leave. There is room only for one alpha reproducing pair on any one territory. Here in San Francisco, those territories run about 2 to 2.4 square miles. In only one instance have I ever seen two families — two unrelated families — live on one territory, and this lasted only from birth of the pups until mid-summer. None of their pups survived which makes me believe that the parents were ill in addition to the mange they had.

I want to point out that family infighting is indeed intense, as seen in these videos, but it’s mostly psychological, along with some body slams and pinch/nips. As far as I’ve seen, the rank and dispersal issues leading to family infighting are qualitatively different from a battle with an outsider coyote (not with a family member), as, say, in a territorial battle. Below are some intense wounds from vicious territorial battles with outsider coyotes — all drew blood — and even a death (the last photo, under the flowers is a coyote whose jugular vein was severed by another coyote).

Addendum: An important piece of information that few people ever consider is the amount of stress and anxiety involved in dispersal. There’s often anger and hostility from the parents who are excluding these youngsters, but also the sheer fear of the youngster who don’t necessarily understand this about-face from their parents, youngsters who don’t know where to go, don’t know where they belong, are in uncharted dangerous territory and actually running scared from the unknown and from hostile coyotes and dogs. Yesterday, December 31, 2024, I came across two yearling siblings — one and a half years old — who had been expelled from their territory. They didn’t really want to leave, but you can see from the above videos that that is what they had to do. When I saw them, they were anxious and exhausted from the trauma. One ate grass and threw it up. The other plopped herself on the ground and went to sleep. We humans don’t often realize how sensitive and feeling coyotes are. They’ve been displaced, and have the same type of feelings we might have in the same situation. Here are the photos I took of them, a mile away from their territorial border:

© All information and photos in my postings come from my own original and first-hand documentation work which I am happy to share, with permission and with properly displayed credit: ©janetkessler/coyoteyipps.com.