Strange coyote behavior?

[SlayerOfBunnies]

I guess, IMO at least, the "viciousness" of coyotes is largely overblown. I grew up on a ranch in SOuth Dakota, with no shortage of coyotes (our state animal, actually). We've always had dogs, ranging from tiny "minature" beagles to labs is size. All our dogs have always been "outside" dogs year round. GUess how many we have had attacked by coyotes in my 37 years.....1? 2? 5? No...we have yet to lose a dog to a coyote attack, or even a calf for that matter. Its not that we don't have coyotes, as they are often seen in the yard and all around our building site. But,
doesn't remotely reflect reality in our area. Coyotes are in the vicinity the vast majority of nights, but even the tiny little beagle who resides on the ranch presently has never been attacked, let alone have "have hsi throat slashed in two seconds". With 350 head of cows and calves around, and haveing lived in rural SD 37 years, I have had my share of coyote encounters, and quite simply my observations over the years seem to indicate people attribute more "attitude" to coyotes than I have EVER personally witnessed.

Anecdotal evidence is all well and good but hardly conclusive. You have anecdotes of coyotes leaving dogs alone; my brother-in-law's dog was just killed by coyotes a few weeks ago. My anecdote doesn't prove anything either.

To the OP, I wouldn't trust them around my pets - I'd be inclined to kill the friggers.

 

[Patocazador]

I totally agree with Johnny B. Goode (I like the opening guitar riff too).

Coyotes were absent from the eastern states until the 1960s-70s. Hawks, foxes, skunks, owls, bobcats, etc. handled the mice and rats just fine. We're never going to be able to exterminate them but keeping them in check by any means is a good idea.

 

[Davek1977]

You have anecdotes of coyotes leaving dogs alone;

Hardly a one or two time occurrence....I'm talking 37 years of living in the country with coyotes, giving me a significant amount of time to study their behaviors. I suppose you can dismiss such experience as anecdotal, but I tend to give decades of real-world observation a bit more credit than that, personally.........certainly more than a 2nd hand report from someone's brother in law anyway.

 

[Johnny_B_Goode]

You should be real proud of that!

Now you can bait the rats, field mice & voles the yotes don't kill when they invade your home!

rc

We have so many birds of prey in this area that even the game warden thinks we should have a short season on birds of prey to keep them wild. I have a redtail hawk that is the size of a young jake that thinks my yard is an all you can eat buffet. Once the leaves fall off the trees you can glass the cutovers and see several birds of prey. We also have an abundance of snakes in the area. Then we have a lot of crows. Killing those coyotes just protected my supply of free range eggs.

 

[short barrel]

What happened that coyotes are now in the east? Was it just natural migration, or did someone bring them here?

 

[Davek1977]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0806_020806_coyote.html


They've been moving east for quite some time now, since the early parts of the 20th century, due in part to changes in the landscape due to agriculture and forestry.. Its natural, they are not "transplanted" coyotes.

 

[mquail]

There are a lot of theories ranging from, “they were always there”, to the extinction of the eastern wolf allowed the coyote to migrate east. We have been told the scientists have found wolf DNA in coyotes so the few wolves that were left or possibly Canadian wolves hybridized with coyotes to produce the present large animals found there today. You know, “Any port in a storm” behavior. Whatever the reason they are there and, from what I’ve read, much larger than the coyotes found out west though I saw a couple of monsters in NE SD. Another theory is the coyote might have followed the plow east. Some species were known to follow the plow west such as the prairie chicken in the Ft Pierre National Grasslands. They supposedly aren’t native to the area. http://www.capjournal.com/news/spri...cle_7cf3f84c-b934-11e2-a045-001a4bcf887a.html
Maybe the coyote did a reverse migration as man moved in and made available more stuff to eat than there was before.

Johnny B Goode, your comments about coyotes in SD were basically what I experienced in NE SD. My one neighbor had always let his dogs run loose without ever losing one to a coyote though he did lose animals to cars. Their cats roamed free and when coyote numbers increased cats and fox numbers crashed. A friend several miles away did have sheep and killed every coyote he could which stood to reason. I’ll make one comment I don’t think anyone would debate, but ya never know on the internet, about dogs and coyotes. No one I knew where I lived had small dogs. I suspect small dogs are right up a coyote’s ally when it comes to a meal. Some of those big farm dogs around there were pretty intimidating. I'll say none of my dogs were ever allowed to run free simply because I didn't want to lose a good bird dog or allow it to pick up bad habits like chasing deer or worse yet, livestock.

 

[TimSr]

The coyotes around here (there are plenty) are designated "eastern coyote" by the naturalists. Their DNA shows significant dog. The adult males run 50-70 pounds.

Maybe a generation ago or less, coyotes were unheard of east of the Mississippi. When I was kid in 60's and 70's I'd never heard of a coyote in Ohio. When they were very few in numbers, there was a lot fo cross breeding going on. Eastern coyotes are indeed very much genetically tainted with domestic dogs, and are MUCH larger than western coyotes as a result. When I lived in CA in the 80's, the coyotes there averaged about 35 lbs for an adult. I've also noticed a lot of behavoral differences between east and west. Westerns seemed to be a lot more solitary and skidish. They would answer each others calls at night, but I'd never seen two or more together.

 

[Davek1977]

From that Natgeo article posted previously:

As coyotes spread east, did they hybridize with wolves? There's good data to suggest that coyotes hybridized with wolves in the past. As coyotes expanded into the Northeast, for example, they may have hybridized with remnant populations of wolves, most likely in Canada. Some, therefore, might have a proportion of wolf DNA in their genome. But the significance of this isn't clear. These animals clearly act like coyotes and not wolves.

 

[SlayerOfBunnies]

Hardly a one or two time occurrence....I'm talking 37 years of living in the country with coyotes, giving me a significant amount of time to study their behaviors. I suppose you can dismiss such experience as anecdotal, but I tend to give decades of real-world observation a bit more credit than that, personally.........certainly more than a 2nd hand report from someone's brother in law anyway.

Don't get cranky - you gave your opinion and I gave mine. We have coyotes here too and I've seen them doing their thing. The OP asked if the behavior was strange, in my opinion, it's suspicious and If it were my pet, he wouldn't be hanging with the coyotes.

 

[Art Eatman]

As with deer, behavior patterns vary. There's no "One size fits all" in any of this.

 

[7.62 Nato]

Coyotes attack and kill horse from Lapeer County Sheriff's Department's mounted division

http://www.wxyz.com/news/horse-with...unted-division-attacked-and-killed-by-coyotes

 

[MtnCreek]

I bet that horse was already down for some other reason. If nobody was there when it went down, it'd just lay there moving it's legs / head back and forth making plenty of noise to attract predators. JMHO.

RC, I'd shoot the friendly yotes and I'd let my dog see me do it!

 

[rcmodel]

Can't shoot or trap them.
Inside the city limits.

Rc

 

[HRnightmare]

There is a good chance there is domestic dog bred into them. Also perhaps they were orphaned fairly young and not taught their hunting skills.

 

[Cypress]

Coyotes here in my part of East Texas will play with dogs. Given that the dog is large enough and in good health. Most of our small dogs have been eaten over the years. Can't say for sure that coyotes got them but for the most part we found remains far from the house with indications that a large predator had gotten to them. They were ALL way past their prime and following the rest of the house dogs. Can't really blame the coyotes for doing what I would've had to in a month or two. As to RC's original post, I once saw one of my dogs chasing a coyote when I was deer hunting. Just as my dog was closing in the coyote turned and started chasing back. This went back and forth in a very playful manner for a little while then they just turned opposite directions and walked away. I recall laughing out loud with the notion of Wyle E. Coyote and the sheep dog clocking out in my mind. Don't know if they were sizing each other up or just playing but I'll never forget it. On other occasions especially during mating season I've witnessed our dogs around coyotes without any bad results. It wouldn't surprise me much to see what you witnessed going on around here.

 

[Balliet]

coyotes in sc

i was told by a scdnr agent that the coyotes in the sc area were mainly brought in by foxpens that used them for fox hunts after the fox numbers had fallen off. just what i heard. sorry to be off of subject.

 

[Cocked & Locked]

Coyotes got four of my goats a couple of years ago. I saw three coyotes, could have been more.

The yotes had mangled three goats so bad I had to put them down...eyes hanging out, intestines dragging the ground, etc.

The oldest goat must have been the first to drop from exhaustion. They were eating him and he was still alive.

I had stepped outside about 5:00 one morning to check the weather prior to going deer hunting. I heard a goat moaning. I thought one was hung up in some fencing.

wrong......

 

[bearcreek]

Can't shoot or trap them.
Inside the city limits.

Rc

Can you use a bow?