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Hunting Coyotes at Night Tips

INTRODUCTION

The coyote, whose name comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word coyote, belongs to the family of canines, including dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, wild dogs.

Canids are believed to be native to North America's great plains where, 40 to 50 million years ago, in the Eocene, their common ancestor lived. Very quickly, the fox branch, Vulpes, broke away from this common trunk. A little later, in the Pliocene, the other components of canines are differentiated, notably wolves and coyotes, which, despite their close kinship, evolve separately. At the end of this period, about 2.5 million years ago, Canis esophagus appears, the ancestor of the coyotes, which must have been a little larger than the present species' animals. According to more recent Pleistocene fossils found in the United States in Maryland and the Cita Cañon in Texas, his descendants closely resemble him. They then rub shoulders with the saber-toothed tiger on the American continent, which still roams the plains.

Since this distant time, coyotes have changed little in their morphology and have slightly differentiated from their ancestors. However, the comparative study of the skulls shows that their cranium has developed, but that the frontal bone is narrower in modern animals than it was in their ancestors. Their non-specialization over the ages has allowed coyotes to colonize new spaces and to adapt to all kinds of habitats and new situations. Thus, they are hunters, but they can survive by feeding on carrion, insects, or fruit. By ridding wild herds of weaker animals and eliminating already doomed individuals, they play their part in the natural balance.

Originally probably inhabiting the Great Plains, the southwestern United States, and Mexico, coyotes have greatly expanded their habitat, which, although uniquely American, also includes deserts, mountains, and forests. And the outskirts of large cities. Thanks to man, who changed the environment and hunted wolves until their almost total extinction, their current territory is immense because they have taken over the vast areas formerly occupied.

THE LIFE OF THE COYOTE A SILENT AND INTELLIGENT HUNT The coyote is a solitary hunter that feeds on anything it can catch. In the central plains, where the climatic conditions are relatively stable, it has the same essential diet all year round, made up for more than 75% of hares. Rabbits, mice, pheasants are also among his favorite prey. Occasionally it does not disdain muskrats, raccoons, polecats, opossums, and beavers, as well as snakes and large insects.

In late summer and fall, the coyote will eat fruit that has fallen to the ground. Blackberries, blueberries, pears, apples, peanuts then represent 50% of his diet. He knows how to choose a fully ripe watermelon and cut it in half to taste its juicy pulp. Neither does he disdain the soybean meal or cottonseed meal distributed to cattle.

In more arid environments, such as Mexico, the coyote mainly hunts small rodents. It also attacks marmots and ground squirrels in Canada, ground squirrels that look like large guinea pigs. But these two species hibernate, and in winter, in these northern regions, it is forced, to survive, to become a scavenger.

In suburban or urban areas, the coyote feeds on human waste, products manufactured by him, such as dog food, or even his pets.

ALONE OR IN COOPERATION When it hears prey or spots it from afar thanks to its keen eyesight, the coyote approaches it silently, facing the wind, tail low, with slow steps interspersed with pauses. Arrived at 2 meters from his victim, he leaps on her and bites her neck. To finish her off, he keeps her in his mouth and shakes her violently. Death is quick. It usually devours the animal on the spot, even eating the bones of small prey.

When coyotes live together, they choose larger prey such as deer, elk, and other ungulates. They run around the herd. In a panic, an individual is isolated, then surrounded and attacked.

When the coyotes hunt in pairs, they force the isolated to run in a circle, taking turns to tire them out. This technique is used with caribou. The killed prey is disemboweled with claws and teeth and divided.

TWILIGHT AND MORNING HUNTERS

Twilight and morning hunters

Essentially nocturnal, the adults move around a lot, hunting more readily at dawn or dusk. On the other hand, young people between 4 months and a year old move more during the day and less at night. Their often unsuccessful hunting attempts force them to devote a lot of time to it, but they still have no territory or offspring to watch over.

SCAVENGER TO SURVIVE IN WINTER In Alaska and in several Canadian provinces, where they arrived following the gold miners in the mid-nineteenth th century, coyotes have learned to face the bitter cold of winter. In these regions, animals must live and feed when the temperature is -10 ° C. The thick fur of the Far North's coyotes covers their whole body and has the same insulating power as that of the gray wolf. The guard hairs reach 11 cm long compared to 5 cm in animals living in a warmer climate. Thick and tight, the undercoat can measure 5 cm in thickness.

But the coyote does not run well in thick snow. However, hares and rabbits do not come out of their burrows when the outside temperature is too low, and groundhogs hibernate. The coyote would not survive the winter if it did not fall back on dead animals. Feeding on all the carrion he finds, he shares them with his fellows.

However, if the wolves arrive, he must give way. He sometimes buries or hides to return to them later. Its best ally is the cold, which finishes off sick or weakened animals, often at the tail of herds of large herbivores. Thus, in winter, it therefore, moves after the latter, devouring dead ungulates. Watching for the slightest failure, he does not hesitate to give the "coup de grace" to elk or caribou, exhausted and unable to defend themselves. If the snow is not too thick and the carrion is insufficient, the coyotes will join forces to attack.

OFTEN SOLITARY, THE COYOTE PREFERS TO LIVE AS A COUPLE Halfway between the fox, solitary, and the wolf, which lives in organized packs, the coyote is a relatively pleasant animal. The male-female pair is the basic unit of this society, where one also meets many solitary animals and herds.

The couple is formed in the middle of winter, at the beginning of the mating season, and sometimes remain united for several years, sharing den and territory.

HIERARCHICAL FAMILY GROUPS In areas where the density of coyotes is relatively low, some animals live solitary. Usually, they are the ones who howl at nightfall from the top of the steep rocks.

In regions where coyotes are numerous and food abundant, small groups are formed, comprising 5 or 6 individuals, that is to say, the parents accompanied by the young of the previous year. These family groups are hierarchical, with the oldest animals dominating and leading the rest of the herd. This type of association also appears when small rodents become scarce. Only substantial cooperation then allows the coyotes to catch animals the size of an elk or a caribou, often faster than them.

Real clashes between coyotes are rare. Grunts and stern expressions are often enough for animals to give up the fight and submit. He must then leave the winner's territory or abandon him the carcass on which he is feasting.

Gambling is frequent. Fake fights, chases, and nibbling are expected in a family. This is part of the education of young people: parents teach them to communicate and to hunt.

THE CRY OF THE COYOTE The repertoire of coyotes is immense: barks like a dog, howl like a wolf, barks like a small puppy, growls ... They use combinations of all these sounds to call the members of their group signal their presence or immediate danger. They also seem to enjoy listening to each other bark or howl in the dark. This is how the solitary animals gathering for a hunting party at nightfall bring about a discordant concert famous throughout the American West and audible for miles around.

A VARIABLE AREA Each coyote, each couple or family group has its territory, centered on the lodge or den. The limits of this territory are marked by all the occupants, who mark it out very regularly by urinating. But few coyotes fight to deny the entry of their domain to a congener. The dominated animal is content to move away to seek asylum elsewhere. However, it seems that groups defend their territory more actively than pairs or solitary animals. Loud crashes, but not very violent, sometimes take place at the borders. The coyotes seem to recognize each other from a distance, up to 200 m. When two individuals meet, if they already know each other, they go their way.

The territory (from a few kilometers to over 50 km) depends on coyotes' density in the region, the season, and the abundance of prey. A study conducted in the Yukon Territory, in northwestern Canada, showed that the thickness of coyotes varies from 1 to 9 individuals per 100 km 2 in winter to 2.3 individuals per km 2 in summer. Instead of traveling at night - on average, a coyote crosses, during a night's hunt, 4 km - coyotes can make long journeys to find territory or for food.

BODY LANGUAGE

The whole body of the coyote is used to make itself understood. Rolling up the lips, lowering or raising the tail, flattening or raising the ears, making the hair stand up are all signals. The coat's black patches further reinforce the facial expressions: lips edged with white hairs around the ears' eyes and lips. A dominant coyote opens its eyes wide. An angry coyote flattens its ears. Aggression is indicated by the erect ears, the raised shoulders, the hair on the back bristling, the lips rolled up, the tail slightly raised. A submissive male shows his genitals to the opponent.

AT NINE MONTHS, THE YOUNG ARE ADULTS The mating season lasts from January to March but begins earlier in the North than in the South. More than 90% of females at least 20 months old go into heat. About 60% of 10-month-old females wait until the end of February if weather conditions are favorable. If the winter is too harsh, they will wait another year to mate.

Males are attracted early on by the smell of hormones in the urine of females in heat. Their courtship is assiduous for several weeks because before fertilization (pre-estrus) lasts from 2 to 3 months. Often, several males are interested in the same female and follow her without a fight. At the time of estrus, which lasts ten days, the female chooses her future partner and comes to give him a few blows of the muzzle. Like other canids, coyotes can stay mated for more than 25 minutes. The other males present do not try to intervene and leave to try their luck with a still available female.

A DEVOTED FATHER The couple demarcates a new territory, choose and clean an old badger, marmot, or fox burrow, or decide to dig a new den. During gestation, which lasts about two months (on average 63 days), both mates hunt together and sleep side by side. When the birth approaches, the male manages alone to ensure the daily pittance, and he brings food to his companion. This one arranges the burrow by depositing there leaves, grasses, or hairs torn from its belly. Some females give birth to their young on the bare ground.

A litter includes between 2 and 12 young (on average, 4). Both parents take care of them. Thus, the father helps with the toilet and feeding of the young after they have been weaned. He guards the entrance to the burrow. In case of danger, he transports the young people, one by one, to a safe refuge, sometimes several kilometers away.

For the first ten days, the little ones suck about every 2 hours. Their eyes open around the tenth day. The first teeth appear around the twelfth day. They walk around three weeks and then begin to come out of the den, watched by the parents, to explore their environment. They run before they are six weeks old. They are generally weaned at the age of 1 month but receive in relay regurgitated meat by both parents. They begin to prey on dead prey, mice, then rabbits.

Generally, young males emancipate themselves and leave their family group between 6 and 9 months. Young females tend to stay with their parents.

THE COYOTE'S DEN

When the coyote does not build an ancient badger or fox den to give birth to its litter, it digs one, very characteristic. The entrance, unique, 30 to 60 cm in diameter, is often hidden by bushes. About 3 m long and 40 to 50 cm wide, a tunnel connects it to a central room, or nursery, where the little ones will be installed. About 1.50 m in diameter, it is well ventilated, as the air enters it through a ventilation chim

TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE COYOTE

LAROUSSE Search the encyclopedia ...  Home > encyclopedia [wild-life] > coyote coyote Coyote Coyote Coyote CoyoteCoyoteCoyote cry Unlike the wolf, the North American coyote's numbers and its range are expanding, although they are trapped and poisoned by humans. It is one of the few wild animal species capable of surviving in urbanized regions. Its extraordinary ecological plasticity has enabled it to conquer two-thirds of the American continent.

INTRODUCTION The coyote, whose name comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word coyote, belongs to the family of canines, including dogs, wolves, jackals, foxes, wild dogs.

Canids are believed to be native to North America's great plains where, 40 to 50 million years ago, in the Eocene, their common ancestor lived. Very quickly, the fox branch, Vulpes, broke away from this common trunk. A little later, in the Pliocene, the other components of canines are differentiated, notably, wolves and coyotes, which evolve separately despite their close kinship. At the end of this period, about 2.5 million years ago, Canis esophagus appears, the ancestor of the coyotes, which must have been a little larger than the present species' animals. According to more recent Pleistocene fossils found in the United States in Maryland and the Cita Cañon in Texas, his descendants closely resemble him. They then rub shoulders with the saber-toothed tiger on the American continent, which still roams the plains.

Since this distant time, coyotes have changed little in their morphology and have slightly differentiated from their ancestors. However, the comparative study of the skulls shows that their cranium has developed, but that the frontal bone is narrower in modern animals than it was in their ancestors. Their non-specialization over the ages has allowed coyotes to colonize new spaces and to adapt to all kinds of habitats and new situations. Thus, they are hunters, but they can survive by feeding on carrion, insects, or fruit. By ridding wild herds of weaker animals and eliminating already doomed individuals, they play their part in the natural balance.

Originally probably inhabiting the Great Plains, the southwestern United States, and Mexico, coyotes have greatly expanded their habitat, although uniquely American, today also includes deserts, mountains, and forests. And the outskirts of large cities. Thanks to man, who changed the environment and hunted wolves until their almost total extinction, their current territory is immense because they have taken over the vast areas formerly occupied.