“River Pack Update: Some things change, some stay the same” by Charles Wood

31 Mar 2011 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in avoiding humans, coyote behavior, coyote reactions to dogs, coyote's coat, group activity, identifying individual coyotes, individuality, reactions to a human

My last post was February 22, 2011 when I photographed the mom coyote that lives in a small field that borders one of Los Angeles County’s concrete ‘rivers’.  That post was about 9 weeks after having seen Mom, Dad and their two undispersed female children who by today would be about a year old.  In the past I called one of the children Bold and the other Shy.  I have included their earlier photographs in today’s post.

A couple weeks ago I began to enter their small field a few times to walk along its roads with my leashed dog Holtz.  Coyote tracks and droppings were on the roads, yet my coyotes, if even present during my visits, would not come out.  I remember winter 2009-10 was a time I rarely saw my coyotes.  Winter 2010-11 has been the same.  I wondered if Dad was still paired with Mom and if not, who would be with whom and would there be more pups this year.  I wondered if the two female youngsters had dispersed or worse.  Perhaps they had all moved to other areas.

Today as I walked south on their road, at their nest area, I spotted the first youngster peering from the brush.  She came out to watch us and then left to hide.  In her photograph, note she has distinct blemishes below her left eye.  Regardless, I’m not sure if this first youngster is Bold or Shy.  I seriously doubt it was neither.

I continued my walk and later left the field via the same road.  Dad peered out from the nest area.  I photographed him and he went back into the brush.  I walked on towards the exit and Dad and a youngster came out to the road and watched our progress and assessed whatever odors we had left on the road.  I say ‘a’ youngster because I am not sure which it was.  Eventually Dad and the first youngster pictured began to follow Holtz and I as we continued to leave.  They did so after returning to the brush and coming out to the road several times.  For the fact that they were not in my continuous view, I’m not sure Dad’s companion in approach is the same youngster shown marking on the road.  I am sure Dad’s companion in approach is the first youngster because the final picture of her in this series shows the same blemish pattern below the left eye.  If she is Bold, she is still so.  If she is Shy, she is less so and learned more from Dad today about how to deal with intruder dogs.  What has changed, and what is the same?

Certainly Dad is the same in his distaste for Holtz.  When following us, Dad decided to quickly close the distance between us.  Before so doing, he scraped dirt.  He and the youngster split up, where Dad came east of the rocks and the youngster came towards us to the west of the rocks.  They met up at the rocks, the youngster holding back as Dad charged Holtz.  The Dad And Youngster photograph was taken after Dad’s charge.  He had come to about 20 feet and stopped, backed off some and stood as shown.  He seemed calmer so I took his picture.  I didn’t take pictures during Dad’s charge because I was charging towards Dad to get in front of Holtz.  Here we see one function of long hair on a coyote’s nape and shoulders:  he sure looks bigger!

My exit strategy after such a confrontation is to walk on, stop, turn around and stare, walk on, turn to stare.  Dad’s exit strategy is to pace, yawn, poke his tongue out, find a nearby site to lie down, attend to his grooming needs and stay put as we leave.  The youngster wanders around, visits Dad, wanders some more, going back and forth yet not forward.

I’m happy to know Dad is still holding his field and that at least one of last year’s pups is alive and undispersed.  I suspect that Mom is present and that there may indeed be more pups this year.  I’m interested to know if last year’s pup(s) will remain and have a role in caring for newborns.  The weeds are growing back quickly in the areas cleared in fall and winter.  The coyotes make use of the additional cover as a puppy kindergarten.  Last year I began seeing the pups in late June, observing them from outside of the field.  The information gained today leaves me content to now keep out of the field.

Posting written by Charles Wood. Visit Charles Wood’s website for these and more coyote photos:Charles Wood. His work is copyrighted and may only be used with his explicit permission.

One-Upmanship: Coyote behavior

14 Jan 2010 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, individuality, oneupmanship Tags: , ,

After watching a coyote “show up” a dog, I was reminded of such behaviors with my own two dogs. One can see coyotes as very similar to one’s own dogs in many ways, except that a coyote must totally depend on itself for survival, so its behaviors have more serious intent.

Cinder, my cattle-dog mix, was extremely brave behind a fence, showing certain dogs exactly what she thought of them. In her mind, she had the power to tell them off. However, walking on a sidewalk, she maintained her decorum and safety by never testing these same dogs. On the sidewalk, there was no  barrier to protect her from the other dog.

My other dog, Park, a large lab mix, was once on a walk with me when we passed a dog who was barking furiously at Park from behind a picket fence — this, for my dog’s daring to come too close to his yard. I would have respected the dog’s wishes and given him and his yard plenty of berth. But no, not Park. Park casually, deliberately and slowly walked right up to where the dog was barking, calmly lifted his leg, and peed right there — and the dog could do nothing about it. “Take that”.

So, today I noticed the same type of behavior in a coyote. The coyote had spent a calm morning observing its park from high up on a knoll. After a few hours, it decided it was time to move on — probably towards home –- but it was in no hurry to get there.

The coyote got up to go, pooped, smelled some Christmas decorations which had not been there before, and ate some grass, keeping its lips up as it did so — I have no idea why it did this, but I did observe it. Then, it turned in its tracks, concentrating its attention over to where a dog was sporadically barking — the dog was in its own yard, behind a cyclone fence. The coyote closed its eyes fairly regularly, as if to block out the sound. The coyote stood still, without moving except for its ears and eyes, for about a minute. Then it stretched as an end to its stillness and as a prelude to something else.

Suddenly, the coyote took several leaping jumps — like a horse rearing up before galloping — and ran rapidly over to where the dog was behind the fence. Its hackles were up. When it got within five feet of the fence, it kept its mouth agape with teeth showing and scratched the ground intently in a bouncy manner. I was able to get four rapid shots of the dog and coyote in close proximity — with the cyclone fence between them — before the dog disappeared totally. It must have retreated into its house. “Take that.” The coyote continued on its merry way, triumphant, down the path and into the bushes.

Postscript: I’m trying to understand coyote behavior as I go along. It seems that the behavior I describe here as one-upmanship might be in a similar vein as the short back-and-forth chase interactions between a large dog and a coyote: that it was done for the interaction with no serious intent — in this case with a fence between?

See posting of February 4th: A short back and forth chase: interaction between a large dog and a coyote.

Some Thoughts: studying coyotes, individuality

31 Dec 2009 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, human behavior, individuality Tags: , , ,

A thought about studying animal life. I know it is the norm to interfere in an animal’s life to study it: to take the animal out of its environment, to handle it and mark it, to attach devices to it, to stick it in a cage or enclosure, to make it endure what we have in mind for it — basically to disrupt an animal’s life or interfere just because it is convenient for the study. Most of the time this is not necessary. When a coyote advocate suggested that we shoot colored paintballs at them so that we humans “could more easily identify each one” I became aware of how humans place their own desires and needs for convenience first, before that of the animal. Every single animal, when it is caught and handled by a human, is absolutely terrified for its life — no matter how short or humane the treatment might be called.

My point is that if we care for the animal, this should come first. It should come before our own needs, and it should come before our reputations in our fields of study. We do not need to disrupt or interfere in an animal’s life to learn about it. The animals can be studied, and probably to better effect, if they are just left alone, with their families, and in their territories. It is with their families and those they have bonded with that we can discover the richness of their emotional life and where the richness of interactive behavior can be found. Interfering disrupts every aspect of their lives and alters it, often absolutely.

I also think, unconventionally, that if you are particularly “into” an animal — seeing it with empathy and understanding — that it really knows this and develops a certain trust for you, so that it could very well be somewhat “into” you — allowing you a view what it might guard from others: this is a mutual respect relationship. Animals who reveal themselves to you, because they want to, will show you more about themselves than you could ever learn by simply watching them. Examples of this approach which I can think of include Jane Goodall and Farley Mowat, and there are others. I know this is considered totally inadequate and definitely contrary to scientific methods by many animal behaviorists, yet I’m seeing that more and more animal scientists are turning more and more in this direction. They now name the animals they work with instead of relying on numbers, and they recognize different individual personalities of each animal, and treat them with empathy.

Individual Personalities count as such a big factor when looking at behavior of any species. More and more people have been able to see this: just go to YouTube to see accounts of “individual” animals — individual personalities rather than what we have all learned as generalities. The problem with categorical descriptions is that people begin to actually SEE the categories instead of the truth. In human terms, this included blonds in the 60s, hippies in the 70s, blacks way back in history. The truth is that there is much more to an animal or human than a category or generalization; and generalizations that hold for a group are almost never entirely true for each individual.

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