Coyotes find way to survive

Published 5:51 pm Friday, February 19, 2010

We have much in common with coyotes. We’re omnivores with a predilection for red meat. We like a variety of restaurants, haunt our favorite ones but move on when they close. We use facial expressions, body postures and sounds to communicate.

We’re creatures of habit, have long-term relationships, and feed and protect our offspring, sending them into the world when they’re old enough to fend for themselves.

We can admire their curiosity, intelligence, adaptability and Houdinilike ability to evade capture and survive eradication programs, but have a hard time condoning their crimes.

Coyotes will eat our small pets, causing many people to ask for the death penalty. Recently that penalty was carried out in Seattle’s Magnolia area when wildlife agents trapped and shot an aggressive coyote.

Trappers are part of the coyote story. They relied on body-gripping traps that closed around a paw or leg until 2000, when the approval of Initiative 713 banned them for recreational trapping.

“It banned 85 percent of the trapper’s tool box,” said Donny Martorello, carnivore and special-species section manager for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The initiative focused on humane treatment, not efficiency or science. Left with trap styles ineffective with cautious coyotes, the dynamics changed overnight.

“We’re still struggling about the long-term implications,” Martorello said.

An increase in coyote numbers may be happening although biologists can only infer without population studies.

Increased complaints about coyotes to regional wildlife offices are one indication. Long-term records aren’t kept, but an increased human population and less hunting territory probably plays a role in the number of interactions.

Permits are issued to trap wildlife for safety and predation reasons, said Sean Carrell, coordinator for problem wildlife at the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

From 2001 to 2005, permits climbed from 63 to 101 for all wildlife problems, Carrell said. Since then, complaints have averaged 102 per year.

Although the agency’s Web site estimates 50,000 in the state, coyotes, like cougars, are impossible to count.

Coyotes have been a distinct species for 2 million years. In American Indian tales, coyotes are intelligent, tricksters, outlaws, gluttons and survivors, metaphors for many human strengths and weaknesses.

When explorers moved west, they found coyotes in sagebrush country and prairies; wolves controlled the forests. But as forests were turned into farmland, wolves were eradicated, and coyotes expanded their range. They now have the most extensive natural range of any terrestrial mammal in America.

Coyote numbers reflect food supply. With scarce food, usually only the alpha pair will breed; when food is plentiful, additional females will have pups.

Active eradication programs in the 1930s and ’40s failed because coyote birthrates increased, as if an instinct drove more females to breed and birth larger litters.

Another adaptation was to increased human population in their territories. The most adaptable mammal in America now can live in virtually any environment, including the urban and suburban fringe.

Coyotes are omnivores, eating vegetation as well as animals.

On the menu: mice, rats, berries, fruit, squirrels, beavers, animal carcasses, frogs and birds. They’ve been seen plunging their head under water to catch fish.

“They’re opportunistic. If they come around the corner, and there’s a domestic cat, they take it; if it’s a rabbit around the next corner, they take it,” Martorello said.

Missing cats are the crux of most complaints about coyotes, even though cat owners bear part of the responsibility.

Next week: Coyote habits and acts of discouragement.