Information and stories about San Francisco coyotes: behavior & personality, coexistence & outreach, by Janet Kessler: Unveiling first-hand just how savvy, social, sentient and singular coyotes really are!
They’re looking around as a siren blasts, waiting anxiously for family members to respond to it. There is no response from anyone this time, which might have left them a little worked up.
This posting is about twenty-month-old siblings (observed two months ago): a brother and a sister. There is another brother who appears to be best friends with this sister — unlike the brother in this posting, he’s gentle and doesn’t try to dominate: see tokens of respect and generosity are proffered and acknowledged in the coyote world. Coyotes get along with some of their siblings more than others, and it appears to be based on how they are treated. Friction can either grow and lead to a coyote’s dispersal — I’ve witnessed this a number of times — or it can mellow out again.
He approaches her provokingly and dominatingly. She snarls defensively.
Sister’s interactions today were with the brother who has had a tendency/predisposition to dominate. Today he tried putting her down — standing over her — dominating.. But she didn’t like it and wouldn’t have it. Coyotes actually choose who they want to submit to — they always have the choice of leaving. So, for instance, just the previous day, Mom stood over this daughter dominatingly, as you would expect — that’s her job — and Daughter patiently and willingly accepted and tolerated it: you don’t mess with Mom unless you want to lose your good standing in the family, and that good standing counts for a lot, such as ability to remain on the territory. And besides, Daughter appears to really like Mom and wants to be agreeable towards her: peaceful families require Mom and Dad to be strong, no-nonsense leaders whose authority is not questioned. They can only know they have this control if the youngsters submit to them willingly.
She ends up lunging at him, snapping at his snout (maybe even trying to grab it) and then moving off
Brothers are different, and especially this brother. He, too, kowtows easily to his parents. But not towards either of his siblings — and they don’t expect this of him. However, he does (has) of them. He constantly puts down the other brother, and the other brother (the sister’s favorite) tolerates it probably because he doesn’t want to rock the boat: if he stood up to the brother and lost, one can imagine that he might be forced to leave both the territory and his sister, whom he obviously cares for very much as revealed in his behavior towards her.
She lies down closeby and snarls at him as he approaches again. Then she walks off and he watches her go.
Dispersal is not something a youngster takes on lightly. It is a dangerous time due to the unfamiliar territory they would have to navigate, traffic, and hostile coyote territorial owners who would drive them away, and due to simply being young and inexperienced. Dispersal means taking on the unknown. So there’s a lot at stake in these squabbles. It’s interesting to watch which way it will go: the intolerable grudges lead to dispersals, and others dissipate if the bullying stops.
After the incidents of the day — him trying to put her down, and her resisting and “telling him off” with a lunge towards his face and a toothy and vocal snarl — I didn’t see them together for a couple of weeks. When I finally did see them together, from all appearances, it looked as though this pattern of behavior had continued, because Sister was keeping her distance and avoiding any contact with that brother (see photo below).
Two weeks later they still weren’t getting close to each other, but kept an eye on each other from a distance (see photo above). Sounds a little like human behavior, doesn’t it?? AND, two weeks after this photo, they are friends again, as if nothing had ever gone wrong!!
As of this posting, at 22 months of age, these two yearlings still remain a part of the family they grew up in: they seem to have overcome their friction and are perfectly mellow towards each other at this stage. Maybe Sis taught him a thing or two about coexistence among themselves!!
I should note that the sequence of behaviors I describe in the photos of this posting began after both coyotes listened and waited for other family members to respond to very loud sirens, but no one did. The tensions resulting from this anticipation were palpable, and may have been what set off the male coyote’s actions towards his sister.
I’m reposting a video I took several years ago showing dominance behavior between two coyote family members. What happens in the video is that the underdog did not like being bumped by the dominant coyote and reacts — he’s annoyed. But the dominant one does not allow him to get away with his disrespectful reaction, and she literally puts him in his place. This is how ranks are confirmed in the animal world. You’ll see there is a slight struggle here, but that it is minimal is the point.
The underdog struggles a little, but the dominant one is much more adept, smarter and wiser. The physical hold is finally let go when the underdog calms down. But not until the underdog reveals that he accepts his place does the top dog actually let go of the psychological hold over the underdog. When the less dominant coyote bows, keeping his head low, and stays that way for a few seconds, he has shown his submissiveness and the little display is over. The ending includes a little playful skip on the part of the dominant coyote. Both then continue grooming themselves and hunting, best friends as ever before.
This particular female was much smaller than the fellow trying to gain the upper hand: dominance is about personality and intelligence, not brawn. This coyote’s control always made me smile. There is literal truth to the phrase “top dog”. These coyotes get along really well, but it is obvious that the existing hierarchy needed reconfirmation now and then. [see the original posting: Dominance Display]
There is a lot of *order* out there in the animal kingdom — and it’s all there to prevent fighting that could get out of hand — even though that too exists: no different from in our human world, in spite of our systems of order. However, they work for the most part..
I’m including below some interesting dominance observations from Kathy Lally who is in charge of the coyotes at St. Augustine Wildlife Reserve. These coyotes are where they are because they can no longer survive on their own in the wild. These coyotes are no longer truly wild, but their behaviors, of course, are the same as coyotes anywhere:
Sundance
“Janet, your email made me laugh last night. Sundance, our friendliest female coyote, flipped her mate Yosemite on his back a few weeks ago. She then stood on him. His yelping could be heard everywhere. I was at the next enclosure when it happened so was able to see her standing on him. She will normally chase him into a den box when she’s had enough of him – this was quite impressive stuff! Attached a picture of Sundance. You will notice a large piece of plywood in back of her. We’ve had to do that to keep the pairs from fighting with their next door neighbors.”[NOTE: Why would they fight? Since coyotes are territorial, they are compelled by their innate territoriality to keep other coyotes out of and away from their territories.]
Yosemite
“Janet, again I was thinking of you and your observations of dominance with your urban coyotes.Of the 3 pairs of coyotes (male/female pairings) which I look after, two of the females are definitely in charge. They are friendlier & will put the males in their place in a heart beat. I stuck around a few minutes when I was delivering diets to the coyotes yesterday morning. Sundance, the little rascal, displayed some amusing behavior: After I put the meals down, she immediately went over, sniffed both of them, peed on one, and took meat from the other. Poor Yosemite [her mate]. He just waited until she was out of the way & went over & grabbed what he wanted.”
Summary: I describe a beating and associated behaviors that appear to be leading to dispersal, and I speculate about the role of hormones in this process.
The evening of observations began uneventfully: three coyotes sitting in various locations, within view of one another, but several hundred feet apart. Then a siren sounded. Mom got up and after a moment of bobbing her head up and down emitting a few barely audible grunts — a sign that she was thinking of howling but hadn’t quite arrived there yet — she began to howl. Interestingly, the normally enthusiastic female yearling did not join in, and the 6-month old male pup only produced one long clear note and then stopped. These are the three coyote players in my posting today. “Okay”, I thought, “something’s going on.”
The next thing I know, Mom walks over to Yearling Daughter who, upon seeing her mother coming towards her, crouches low and remains motionless with a fearful expression on her face. Mom walks stiffly and stands over Daughter threateningly, with hackles up, stiff and erect tail, teeth bared, lips curled back, and narrow-slit eyes. With only minor repositioning of themselves, they remain this way for over a minute, though it seems like forever. During a millisecond of Mom’s inattention — though Mom may have allowed this — Daughter slithers out from under Mom, crouching low and keeping her rear-end tucked in. Looking at these photos later, I could see that before I had arrived in the park, there had been a battle: Daughter had a bleeding mouth and a bleeding tear under her chin.
Six-month old male pup then walks over to his older sister inquisitively but leaves it at that, and then all three coyotes walk away from one another and lie down again in separate areas. Eventually, Daughter rises and heads over to join her younger brother, possibly for the greeting which hadn’t taken place a few minutes before. As she does so, Mom immediately gets up and jolts over to them, and as she does, both offspring descend into the sand pit and I’m cut off from seeing them for a few seconds. Immediately, I hear a squeal of pain, and growling and shuffling in the sand pit. I run over and take this intense video:
Not only is Mom beating up on Daughter, brutally shoving her with the side of her body, hovering over her, punching and biting her, but her 6 month old son — normally a buddy of Daughter’s — has followed Mom’s lead and is doing the same thing, just as fiercely. The scene is intense.
As seen in the video, finally Daughter extracts herself and runs off, but Mom races after her and slams her down one more time, in a way that suggests, “You better just watch yourself”. Daughter sits still, appearing to shrink into herself for protection and maybe to make herself look smaller, and finally she is left alone. She then runs off, distancing herself from her mother and lies down to rest. Now I’m able to see her numerous fresh wounds, and I can see that she’s utterly dejected. She puts her head down and closes her eyes several times.
Meanwhile, Mom heads back to sniff the areas where the altercation took place, and then walks intimidatingly past the daughter who remains prone and still, hugging the ground, so as not to further raise her mother’s ire. 6-month-old pup keeps his distance from both coyotes. Sirens sound again, and this time Mom and 6-month old pup hop up and howl, but the normally spirited little Yearling Daughter does not join in at all. I don’t know if this was of her own accord, or if she had been *told* not to participate.
After a time, Mom and son head off on their evening trek. Daughter watches them go and remains where she is as the two of them disappear into the distance. She then gets up and goes the other way, limping, and ends up in some tall grasses, where her yearling twin brother comes by and touch noses with her. The 6 month old pup reappears and, true to form, follows the older brother’s lead in touching noses with her. Is the 6-month old simply conforming to the behavior of his elders?
Associated Observations and Speculations about the role of hormones in this process:
Coyote yearlings are maturing into adults with increasingly independent drives which appear to be upsetting the established social order in their families. Coyotes live in highly structured families on exclusive family-owned territories. They have a rigid hierarchy for maintaining social order and for maintaining territories with low population densities. Here are some of my additional observations of behaviors that appear to be associated with the beatings, along with some of my speculations.
1. Yearling Daughterappears to have become too independent and too much of a leader. She has been out in the forefront often, leading the others. For instance, it’s this daughter who has figured out where scraps of food can be found, and she always gets there first and eats first, and she’s the one who leads the others there. Could this type of upstart leadership be a threat to Mom, and might Mom sense this as a threat to the whole family? Aside from the leadership question, might Mom consider that particular location dangerous (having dangerous dogs or people) and therefore warrant putting an end to going there? One of the recent *beatings* took place at this location. The result: Daughter does not venture over there anymore.
2. Youngsters are disciplined in order to maintain social order. The discipline is often severe: tough action speaks louder than tough words! In the video, Mom’s harsh lashings could be aimed at squelching an intensifying hierarchy dispute between the stronger yearling and her 6-month old sibling. Younger son’s participation may simply be *getting back at* his sister for previous incidents against him. However, the picture actually looks much bigger than this one incident.
3. Deference towards Mom by Daughter has been sliding recently. Kowtowing and submission is now being forced by Mom instead of being a willing component of the daughter’s behavior. Interestingly, mom no longer grooms Daughter, even as she continues to groom all her other offspring, be they yearlings or this year’s pups. Is the mother distancing herself from this offspring? Mom’s “beatings” as seen in the video have served to demote the female to lowest man on the totem pole — even below the much younger 6-month old son. Ever after I took the above video, Mom, if she’s there, puts Daughter down for pulling rank on ANY of the other family members. The 6-month old pup has taken advantage of the situation to actually prod and poke his sister — literally. The 6-month old pup isn’t smart enough or strong enough to dominate his sister yet, but with Mom’s presence preventing Daughter’s reaction to the prods, he seems to have climbed above her in rank. So, Mom has knocked the female yearling down a few notches in her relationship to all others.
6-month-old brother, in the middle, has just prodded his yearling sister by poking her with his paw.
4. And, ever since the beating in the video, Daughter takes off running whenever she sees Mom coming from the distance, and most of the time sits on a little knoll far from the rest of the family when the rest of them congregate. Mom’s (and 6-month-old son’s) persistent antagonism is leading to Daughter’s increased isolation and exclusion from family events, though she still joins when Dad around.
5. The hierarchy issue appears big, but the ultimate result might be dispersal of the yearling, unless things change. Driving youngsters out is called dispersion, and it’s necessary, not only to keep the population numbers low enough to insure there are enough resources (resources are always scarce) for everyone who remains in the territory, but also to insure the smooth functioning of the family unit. There is no room for upstarts or two alphas.
6. Reproductive competition may be one of the biggest factors in the beatings and then dispersal. I’ve seen this same antagonistic behavior in another family between a mom and her daughter, and in a family between the father and his son. In all cases, the *upstart* yearlings were demoted to the very bottom of the established family hierarchy. I’ve observed that it’s mostly the mothers who drive the female yearlings out, and the fathers who drive out the males, though I remember seeing one father drive a daughter out. It makes sense: the dads do not want reproductive competition from a son, and the females do not want reproductive competition from a daughter.
SPECULATIONS, in the yellow box below, for those who might be interested in the hormone (or pheromones, as in urine) question:
7. SPECULATION ABOUT THE ROLE OF HORMONES: It has occurred to me that the *beatings* and *intimidations* may go on for another reason which falls short of actual expulsion of the youngster female from the family. We’ve all heard that, in any coyote family, only the *alphas* reproduce, yet yearlings often are allowed to stay in the family. Why don’t they reproduce? The *reign of terror* as you can see from the above video, is pretty strong. Although this would have to be explored by an endocrinologist, I do know that fear causes cortisol to rise in animals, and heightened cortisol, in turn, inhibits the production of reproductive hormones. Could this be causing the beta adult females in any family to become temporarily sterile? In this case, the *reign of terror* by the mother would be geared to insure that only she, the mother, the alpha female, will be reproducing within that family. Food for thought.
8. FURTHER SPECULATION: Could Mom’s behavior be triggered by her sensing a competitive hormonal state in her daughter? I’m throwing this out there as a possibility because, in this and in another family where I observed the same beatings, the mom was particularly interested in smelling the reproductive areas of her female daughter. It would be interesting to investigate this if it hasn’t already been.
If it is possible for menstrual cycles to align themselves when all-females cohabitate (all-girl dorms and nuns), it might not be so far-fetched to think that some form of hormonal communication could be occurring between female coyotes, and could be a factor in adult beta females remaining *behaviorally sterile* within coyote families. For instance, could one female’s strong hormones act to inhibit those of another proximate female? An alpha with strong hormones would be able to retain the status quo, but what might happen if a youngster’s hormone levels surged in response to Mom’s weakening hormone production as she ages? Would a mother’s *reign of terror* raise cortisol enough to scare a youngster’s endocrine system from producing?
There’s one more interesting factor here associated with hormones, I think. Females go into estrus and reproduce only once a year. The odd thing is that males, too, only produce sperm — spermatogenesis — at that one time of year. What triggers their overlapping schedules? More food for thought.
9. For the purpose of this posting, I’m not going to get into the different personalities and histories of each coyote in the family except to mention that *Dad* in this family has a fondness for all his pups and indulges each and every one of them: he grooms them, nuzzles them and shows them affection. The same affection is not conferred on Mom — he appears to have chilled towards his mate who he sometimes prevents from grooming him and who he never grooms: her advances for purposes of grooming/affection and even rank confirmation/testing seem to be rejected. In addition there frequently are growls and teeth baring between these two, including at his initial interactions with the yearling daughter. Simultaneously, Dad seems to soothe and comfort Yearling Daughter after Mom’s attacks sometimes. Might all of these little behaviors cause Mom to feel competition from Daughter? It seems to me that this could be a contributing factor in the alpha female’s need to drive Daughter to the lowest rungs of the group and maybe off.
10. The phenomenon of territoriality keeps the population density down. The territory in the case of this family is a golf course. You might think that golf-courses are large enough to be home to many coyotes and that they are ideal habitat, but they are not. In this particular golf course in the past, there was desperate internecine warfare between two coyote families. I’m told that the puppies of one family were killed off: this shows how severe the battles can be. There is room for only one family and the other family was forced to leave.
Golf courses are kept for golfers, not for coyotes, so overgrown foliage areas where rodents might live are cleared out regularly. The lawn/turf areas are not much better than plastic astroturf or concrete in terms of the foods they supply: they are cleared of gophers on a regular basis with one-way traps which break the gophers’ necks: not a pleasant death, but the point is that gophers are eliminated, and gophers happen to be one of the coyote’s staple foods here in San Francisco. So a golf-course serves mostly as a home base, not as a food gathering area. Coyotes trek further afield for most of their sustenance, into neighborhoods and other open spaces and parks. Coyotes actually trek further than their claimed territories, be they parks, golf-courses, or open spaces, no matter how dense the resources are. I’m simply suggesting that golf-courses are not sustainable food areas for coyotes.
Territories (home bases) and surrounding ranging lands only support so many coyotes: the population is kept low through the phenomenon of territoriality, as far as I’ve seen. In any one territory, grown coyote pups eventually disperse, or leave the territory between the age of one and two years usually, and those that don’t leave are betas who do not reproduce. Dispersal is necessary to keep the population numbers low enough to insure there are enough resources for everyone who remains.
12. What’s fascinating about this video is that the 6 month old pup has joined his mother in beating up his elder yearling sister just as vehemently as is the mother is. He’s always been a buddy to his older sister, following her, copying her, the two of them grooming each other, and she coming to his rescue/defense whenever she felt he was in danger. Now, suddenly, he has taken on his mother’s behavior and ganged up on his older sister. His survival, of course, depends on his aligning himself with Mom. And it is through copying that coyote pups learn. So, the sister gets beaten up. The sister is clearly traumatized both physically (see wounds I’ve circled in the photo), and emotionally. Puppy also suffered collateral damage, but only physically.
11. After the beating, the Yearling Daughter wanders off to be far away and acts dejected. Do coyotes have feelings? I myself have no doubt. You can figure out how they feel by the way you might feel under certain similar circumstances (see some of Carl Safina’s videos). This is not anthropomorphizing in the sense that purely human characteristics are placed on animals. These animals actually have these feelings which are best described by the language we use to describe our own emotions. However, it is anthropocentric for humans to believe that they are the only ones who feel things. Finding similarities is what helps people relate to wildlife — we need more of it, and less of a divide than what some academics have clung to. The new models are Jane Goodall’s and Carl Safina’s. More and more scientists are seeing animals as sentient beings who share many of our own, or very similar to our own, feelings and emotions.
The young female coyote has gone off to be alone, far away from further parental and sibling torment. The normally perky and energetic youngster here puts her head down, as though defeated. She stays off to herself. She doesn’t joint the next howling session. She doesn’t join the family for their rendezvous and trekking session. In fact, she trots in the opposite direction: she’s been excluded from participation in the family — shunned. Remember that family life is what they live for.
So she can’t join the fun and games: you can tell she wants to by the way she lurches forward just a little sometimes and then restrains herself. She behaves exactly like my dog when he’s been told to sit/stay, yet he wants to join the rest of us.
As I left the park this day, I heard loud squawking and branches rustling strongly in the branches way above. I looked up to see a red-shouldered hawk fighting with another red-shouldered hawk, and I wondered if dispersal was in the air. Nature is not always as kind or sweet as many of us might want to believe: it has its heartaches as well as its joys.
An exasperated coyote determinedly puts an end to the howling of another coyote: “Cool It!” They were responding to a siren. Notice that the victim actually has the last word, though it’s not very loud, before they both settle down to groom themselves!
Usually one doesn’t mess with Dad. When Dad comes at you with his tail out, hackles up and belligerent, you go belly up fast and stay there until he releases you. It’s a many-times-a-day occurrence for this young male coyote. The behavior serves to reconfirm the strict hierarchy of dominance and submission between a father and a son coyote. Peace is maintained in the family with this order of things: there’s never any question about who is the boss.
On this day, Son has a feisty and berserk reaction to Dad’s dominating put downs. This reaction occurred after the third such put down within only a few minutes — “enough is enough, man”. First while on his back, Son snaps (teasingly), full of fun and good-naturedly at Dad. He sticks his paws in Dad’s face and then, full of himself, and “possessed by the devil”, runs off, not knowing exactly where to go or what to do, but running and jumping in circles and in fits and starts, and occasionally looking at Dad. Dad sat & watched until it was over, and then went over and put him down one more time!
Putdown #1 and #2
Son submissively approaches Dad
Dad puts Son on back, as expected
Son slithers away and scratches himself nonchalantly
Dad glares at son who avoids looking at him
Dad approaches Son belligerently
Dad stands on son again
Son Reacts Playfully
Son teases — “ah, c’mon, Dad!”
Playfully defying Dad continues
Playfully defying Dad continues
Son scurries away — maybe he’s gone too far with this game?
Son Goes Into Full Berserk Mode
Dad’s Reaction and Final Putdown In This Series
Dad just stares at Son
Eyeing each other after the wild (but good-natured) defiance
Dad stands on Son yet again
Dad walks away from Son when Son has calmed down
My dog would do this — go berserk — after a bath, or, in her eyes, after restraining her in the tub against her will. After the bath, she’d run around the house wildly, jumping on the furniture and wiping herself on whatever was available, as though she were trying to “wipe off” or undo the bath.It was as though she had been bitten and was running from something. She would stop every few seconds to look at us with a grin on her face, rump up, forelegs extended out in front, and ears back. Maybe she was thinking: “Okay, you made me submit, but I’ll show you that I don’t like it and that I have a free spirit.”
Today I came upon these three coyotes playing a frenzied, or maybe frantic, game of chase, or so it appeared at first. It is the family where the dad has been trying to get his son to leave the territory. Youngster was actually evading Dad in this chase pretty well, and he was having fun doing so — it appeared to be a game for him. But Dad seemed to have more of a purpose to his chasing. When Dad finally did catch the male youngster, he threw him down and I heard yelps of complaining pain from the youngster.
The male youngster soon extracted himself from under Dad good-naturedly to continue the play, but I suppose the look on his father’s face dissuaded him from continuing. Instead, he fled away a few feet with tail under, ears back, arched back and back legs brought forward: this was a submissive run. He then sat facing away from his dad so there could be no eye contact and so he wouldn’t be confronted — but his ears were turned down and back, which still allowed him to keep track of Dad. Dad wandered off, and son got up and looked back at him leaving.
Dad is putting son down after a playful chase: playful to the youngster, but maybe not to the Dad?
Dad is putting son down after a playful chase
Youngster male to left approaches Dad in a friendly playful manner
Youngster male flees with arched back from Dad who is to the left
Youngster male sits with his back towards Dad
Youngster male who has run off some distance peeks back to see what Dad is doing
Son then ran towards his supportive sister — see below. Notice his ears airplaned out to the sides, he is to the left. She has a stiff stance and her hackles were up initially. She allowed him to encompass her snout in his — this is fairly new behavior by both of them — and then they sat calmly together and just watched the goings on in the park before all three coyotes took off together.
Youngster male to left with ears airplaned out to the sides, sister to the right looks a little intimidating with her hackles up
Interestingly, male to the left grabs snout of his sister
Everything is now at east between the siblings, so they sit and watch
Dad trounces a pup, 2nd youngster looks on with lowered ears
I observed another pup pommeling by its parent a few mornings ago. This time, it was a father coyote who interjected himself into the fun of his two coyote pups who were excitedly wrestling and and chasing each other. It was very dark, but I was able to capture some images, and, of course, I heard the high pitched, complaining “squeals” from the youngster being trounced. The pup took the beating lying on its back, as the second youngster just looked on with lowered ears. Then, all three coyotes — Dad and two pups — moved to a location not too far off, where the pups continued to play and Dad watched. Dad actually seemed to be trying to lead them away, but he stopped indulgently, standing there, and watched their fun. After about 10 minutes of this, they all trotted off in a single file after Dad and into hiding.
Why had the Dad trounced the youngster? Had the pups been playing too “rough”? Had one been trying to dominate the other? Did Dad just need to establish some order, or maybe restore his hierarchy in this pack, the way the mother had in the other family pack I wrote about?
These pups here are 8 months old: full-sized, but still pups.
Before I started videoing the above, two coyote pups had been foraging in an open field when they spotted Dad coming. They dashed ecstatically in his direction. After only a short truncated greeting, Dad confirmed his dominance towards the male pup, who willing submitted by lying on his back immediately and not protesting.
This “status confirmation” has become a routine where everyone knows how to behave: the pups acquiesce willingly to the submission which is demanded of them, and all relationships are confirmed as stable. The other pup, the female, also immediately turned on her back and then kept low, even though Dad was on top of the other pup. This little threesome seemed happy for the few moments they were there: everyone did the right thing, everyone smiled and tails wagged.
Then mom appeared on the scene. With everyone’s attention on the mother, the dad let go of his hold on the male pup who calmly got up and wandered in the other direction from which the mom was coming. Mom immediately headed for the female pup — the one which has been the target of Mom’s animosity and displays of dominance in the last few days. Today the treatment became more harsh. That’s Dad casually viewing the altercation from in front; he’s still limping from an injury a week ago.
Note that the female pup is not compliant and snaps back, which may be the problem — but then who wouldn’t self-protect under this onslaught? Also note Mom’s final emphatic statement: “And take this, too!” No holds barred.
[Please see the previous two postings on this behavior: Punishment and Punishment Again]
Dad looks on as mother clasps pup’s snout in her mouth
Mother keeps her mouth around pup’s snout, Dad watches
Mom snarls at pup lying on its back under her. Dad and another pup casually watch
Mom is stretched over pup holding it down
Mom lies on top of pup holding it down and punch-bites it; the youngster whimpered during this and then escaped and fled
You can see where the pup has been bitten
This is the second time in the same day that I observed this behavior between this particular seven-month old female pup and her mother. Please see the previous posting.
I had two thoughts that might be related to this: the first about Great Horned Owl dispersal, and the second about canine intuition regarding the alpha quality in another canine.
I’ve seen Great Horned Owls lovingly raise their owlets for almost a full year, from the time they are born in late March, through the fledging stage when they leave their birth nest, and through months of teaching hunting and other survival skills. Then one day, towards the end of the Fall season, both parents — these are parents who have mated for life and have raised their owlets together for the last 15 years — turn viciously against their offspring forcing them to leave the area. There is room for only one mated Great Horned Owl pair in any territory due to limited resources. As time approaches for the new reproductive cycle to begin, at the end of the calendar year, any offspring born that year are driven away by their parents. I’ve always wondered what it must feel like to be so totally loved and cared for, and then have those who loved you suddenly attack you. This is what goes on. The young owls fly off to areas as close as the next park over, if there is room there, or as far away as across the US.
My second thought stems from how my 2-year-old female dog reacted when we brought home a new 4-month-old puppy — a male. We found the puppy — abandoned — and we couldn’t just leave him. She must have intuitively known that he would be growing much bigger than her, and that, based on his behavior and activity level and disregard for her, that he would assume the dominant status eventually. It’s only with hindsight that we came to know that this was going on right from the start. Over an extended period of time we noticed that the alpha status had segued to him, and she just accepted the inevitable. An alpha coyote in the wild, it seems, would do its best to prevent this from ever happening, especially from one of its own pups who began showing signs of any kind of dominance.
So, we’ll soon see how this situation pans out: if it settles down, or if it leads to something.
When “disciplining”, the alpha of a family pack gently puts her/his mouth around the snout of a coyote who is out-of-line, and maybe turns the “underdog” on its back for a few moments. This discipline could be reinforced by the alpha placing its paws on the back of the fellow who is out-of-line. The subordinate quickly shows deference and everything is back to normal within a few seconds: the alpha status is reconfirmed and everyone knows their role in the family hierarchy. This is not what I saw today, twice.
What I saw today I’m going to call “punishment” — it is much more severe. I’ve thought about what might have lead to this kind of punishment:
The most probable reasons involve defiance of the alpha figure, in this case the mother, or possibly disobeying commands that are meant to protect the family pack and help with its survival. Hierarchy has to be rigidly maintained in a healthy coyote family.
Or, maybe the alpha needed to bring down the highest-ranking pup? Maybe it was becoming too powerful among its siblings?
Then again, this harsh discipline might just be the first steps in forcing dispersal. But then, why would the mother be targeting just the one pup, a female?
I suppose there are all sorts of possibilities. I don’t know enough at this stage to state with certainty what is going on, but I tend to think the punishment was for the youngsters own good, and not self-aggrandizement by a mean mother. But I was totally taken aback as I observed it.
The youngster in this observation is almost seven-months old, a female. She approached her mother, belly scraping the ground, showing deference, submission and caution. This did not include the wiggly squealing happy meeting that I usually see. The pup approached and quickly turned on her back, with the aid of the mother’s legs. The mother then stood, crouched low, over the youngster for a long period of time, snarling now and then at the slightest hint of movement or protesting from the pup. At one point, as the pup lay there quietly, the mother licked the female pup’s private parts. and then the pup’s inner leg. The pup remained quiet at first. Then the pup seemed to protest and tried getting up, and even almost got up at one point. The mother snarled viciously and was able to quickly put the pup down again. Then the pup did break away for a moment, but the mother quickly used her entire body to hold the pup down. There were then a series of hard punch-bites from the alpha-Mom. This was all carried out in silence except for one high pitched whimper from the pup near the end of the “session”. The pup then was able to get up and dash off for cover into some bushes about 50 feet away.
Mom then sat up and looked ahead and around, without a second glance towards the pup in the bushes. Within a few minutes she headed down the hill. The pup came out of the bushes and watched — watched longingly and sadly as the mother headed off. Were they not reconciled? Would this continue? At the bottom of the hill the mom looked back, seemingly disapprovingly, at the pup, and then continued on. The pup stayed at her spot by the bushes and looked very sad, watching the mother disappear into the distance. Many minutes later, the pup, too, headed down the hill, but in another direction.
This looks like a dominant fella lording it over the guy in the water in an intimidating manner. The dominant guy struts and stretches, hackles raised and tail up, and then moves in closer with a snarly expression and more intimidation. Submissive guy stands still with his ears and head down, a non-threatening and submissive pose, and then walks away only when he thinks the coast is clear, tail down and constantly checking in back of himself.
My experience has been that young males are driven away from their birth families — out of their birth packs — by either a more dominant sibling or their father, or sometimes their mother. It looks to me as though this is what is going on in this video.
This video was sent to us by Amy Ries from the Raptor Resource Project. She said the EagleCrest Hawk camera is normally pointed at the tree, but the guy who pans saw the coyotes and filmed them. Thank you, Amy for sharing this!
This is a rare observation. We’ve all heard of the term “dominance”, but how many of us have seen it in operation? Here is a blatant show of dominance by one coyote. There is literal truth to the phrase “top dog”. These coyotes get along really well, but it is obvious that the existing hierarchy needs reconfirmation now and then. The underdog did not like being bumped by the dominant coyote and reacts. But the dominant one does not allow him to get away with his reaction, and literally puts him in his place.
The underdog struggles a little, but the dominant one is much more adept. The physical hold is finally let go when the underdog calms down. But not until the underdog reveals that he accepts his place does the top dog actually let go of the psychological hold over the underdog. When the less dominant coyote bows, keeping his head low, and stays that way for a few seconds, he has shown his submissiveness and the little display is over. The ending includes a little playful skip on the part of the dominant coyote. Both then continue grooming themselves and hunting, best friends as ever before.
By the way, I captured this clip in very bad lighting — on the dark side of twilight — I’m learning that my camera video capability is amazing!
Sibling rivalry exists in almost all families, and in almost all species. The first baby eagle born makes it his job to push the others out of the nest. Fratricide is the most extreme result of sibling rivalry. But before that point is reached, a sibling might be driven by another sibling from what had been his home.
This is the best-case scenario I can think of, in a coyote family which I have been observing for two years now. The more submissive of the twin male siblings had been bullied and dominated for several months. Although when this happened he would always increase the distance between himself and his brother, more recently he had been standing up for himself by growling and snapping back, and even remaining close by — as if stating that he wasn’t going to be pushed around. Then, one morning, I heard unusual coyote sounds: these were complaining-like squeals which lasted about five minutes before petering out totally. Charles Wood has suggested that those squeals might have been from the type of fight that produced the rump wounds I had seen and posted earlier on. I don’t know if this is related or not, but the day I heard those sounds marks the last time I saw the more submissive of the two coyote siblings which I had come to know as a family. Until that point, he was the one that was most visible and out in the open. His disappearance was very sudden and very total.
Did he just disperse, or did something worse come to pass? Charles Wood has suggested another possibility: that this coyote might have been banished from contact but not from the area — hiding in the day and eating at night. If I see him again I will post it, but it has been a month now since I last saw him. Worst-case scenarios also exist, brought to mind by hearsay and conversations I’ve had with individuals in the parks. Although highly unlikely, these possibilities include kidnapping either for breeding purposes or as bait for pit bull fighting — an illegal practice which continues in this area, or even removal by park visitors who have been wanting coyotes “relocated” for some time. Let’s cross our fingers that any of these is not the case.
In this posting, you have three different sets of interactions — each row across is a different set. In the first row, the dominant sibling approaches the more submissive guy. He displays his dominance initially by urinating. Then he approaches as overpowers the submissive guy. In the last slide of the first row, notice that Mom is calmly watching from the sidelines.
In the second row there is a display of oneupmanship by the dominant sibling. But then they seem to hunt together: each totally interested in what the other is doing. In the last photo of the second row they look like they are hunting peacefully side by side.
In the bottom row, the sequence begins with all three coyotes watching an onlooker and a dog-walker team in the distance. Then the dominating sibling, with hackles and tail up, approaches the less dominant fellow, who, in the last slide, runs off with head down and ears back.
A family of three interacts in their habitual manner. In the top two rows, the submissive sibling is in the middle, with Mom on the right and the dominant sibling on the left. The submissive fellow keeps his ears back and somewhat together. He’s the one who puts his paw up on the dominant sibling in supplication: “hey, take it easy.” The last photo of the middle row shows Mom reacting angrily to the dominant sibling, and he, in turn, reacting to her — each bares their teeth viciously, but only for show, for communicating feelings. This altercation ends quickly.
Bottom row: the submissive sibling, now in the middle, tries to assuage Mom’s anger. In the middle slide, this submissive fellow has moved to the right keeping a vigilant eye on the dominant sibling to the left — notice his eyes. In the last slide, with Mom safely off to the far right, the bullying sibling in the middle feels free to go after the more submissive fellow who snaps back. They all then moved apart and there were no more interactions.
About My Site and Me: This website reflects my 16 years of intense, careful, and dedicated field-work — empirical observations — all photo-documented without interfering or changing coyotes’ behaviors. Be welcome here, enjoy, and learn!
Coyotes reappeared in San Francisco in 2002 after many years of absence, and people are still in the dark about them. This site is to help bring light to their behavior and offer simple guidelines for easy coexistence.
My information comes from my own first-hand observations of our very own coyotes here in San Francisco. They have not been studied or observed so thoroughly by anyone else. Mine is not generic information, nor second-hand.
Note that none of the coyotes I document and photograph is “anonymous” to me: I know (or knew) each one of them, and can tell you about their personalities, histories, and their family situations. There have been over 100 of them, distributed among over twenty families, all in San Francisco. Images and true stories have the power to raise awareness and change perspective.
Coyote Yipps 
