Coyotes are now expanding exponentially from Alaska down to Panama and can even been found in the streets of New York City and California. These carnivores have a reputation as a nuisance, but one must admire their ability to adapt to varied hostile terrain. The political landscape of Federal wildlife managers, hunters, and game officials all try to give coyotes a difficult time, but they persevere and multiply with their stealth.
According to the Washington Post article, coyotes have been present not only from the time of the European settlers, but for thousands of years before. Our current species of coyote outlived saber tooth tigers from the Pleistocene epoch. It has been hypothesized that our current surge in widespread migration and breeding among coyotes is due to reduction of their nemesis predator- the wolves and large cats. However, hunters and wildlife organizations have reduced the predator numbers to near extinction such as with the case of red wolves.
Red wolves, for example, used to keep the coyote numbers tapered with their large packs and advanced hunting skills. Now, ironically enough, the wolf population has been diminished so much that they had to result in breeding with the expanding population of coyote. This breeding increases the coyote’s prominence in cities in the US, Canada, Mexico, and even down to Panama- even if they are mutts. The coyotes are also able to breed with dogs. Yes, it seems the neighborhood dog may be pregnant with hybridized coydogs.
The coyote ability to multiply quickly, capability for interspecies breeding, and stealth from hot and dry to wet and snowy terrain all seem to contribute to its current soaring population. Coyotes eat small mammals and garbage (there is plenty of garbage and small mammals in big cities as food for coyotes). If coyotes become a nuisance, the advise of Ohio State University professor, Stanley D. Gehrt, is to merely keep pets indoors and trash out of coyotes reach.
Since the coyotes population is soaring across North America and now past the Panama Canal we may be able to soon see them in South America. Odds are that the coyote’s stealth will evade most people even in New York City’s Central Park. This species is definitely forest bound and the ultimate city slicker.
