Eastern Coyote
Some Facts about the Eastern Coyote
Scientists say that there is evidence that the Eastern Coyote has lived in the Eastern part of North America since the Pleistocene period, which was over one million years ago. They have only become common to the area in the last seventy-five years. The scientific name for the Eastern Coyote is Canus lattrans, which means barking dog, and recent research reveals that the Eastern Coyote has interbred with the wolf and is a hybrid. It is thought he is the result of coyote interbreeding with the Canadian Gray Wolf.
The Easter Coyote is in-between the size of the Western Coyote and a wolf. They normally weigh in the thirty to fifty pound range and are four to five feet long. They have thick fur, long legs, a pointed chin and they can be colored from gray to brownish-red with black hairs on the end of their tail. The Eastern Coyote looks like a dog, but one of the differences is that they run with their tails pointed down instead of up in the air.
Coyotes have been moving toward the East Coast since the middle of the 1900s. They seemed to have come from the Midwest and then passed through Canada back into the Northeastern parts of the United States and up and down the Atlantic Coast. The first coyotes in New England appeared in the 1940s and 1950s and by the 1980s had spread throughout the region.
Coyotes seem not only to survive but to thrive because they adapt to whatever food is available, whether it is woodchucks, rabbits, squirrels, amphibians and insects, fruit, garbage, domestic cats or dogs. They can live in heavily wooded areas but also in open fields, valleys and wetlands.
The Eastern Coyote takes on a mate for life. They breed from January to March with the pups emerging in the spring. Coyotes live in a pack and both of the parents and even older siblings care for the pups. The female coyote can give birth to anywhere from four to eight each season. Sometimes the coyotes go off to make a home for themselves when they are around a year old but some of the offspring also stay with the parents.
Coyotes claim a territory of their own that can range anywhere from five to twenty-five miles in distance. They mark their territory with urine and defend it against other coyotes and other animals. Coyotes speak to one another in barks, yips and howls.
The Eastern coyote is a very intelligent animal that has managed to not only survive but to grow in numbers, living in close proximity with humans. Most coyotes do not attack livestock and can actually help farmers by eliminating rodent populations. Eighty-percent of their diet consists of rabbits and smaller rodents. In most states, coyotes are considered nuisances, which means that they can be killed or trapped year-round.