by Scottie Westfall

Created on: August 21, 2008   Last Updated: June 30, 2009

The coyote represents many things to different people. To the Navajo, he was the trickster, a thinking animal with a playful intelligence. To the first European settlers, he was the scourge of the plains, second only to the wolf in its rapacity against flocks of sheep. A modern view sees them as an integral part of the ecosystem, keeping the numbers of rodents and rabbits in check. Predators cast a shadow into the psyche. The coyote is no exception. It is through this shadow that we view the animal as a villain, a teacher, or an ecological asset. My view of the coyote goes something like this:

On a crisp night in October, a cacophony of wails, yips, and whines begins to rise from the ridge that towers across the ravine from my backyard. The howling din fills the autumn air, setting off all the neighborhood dogs, which emit growling barks of territoriality. My normally sedate golden retrievers bark their own warnings at the demons across the hollow, but I know fully well that they are safe. The animals making that noise are half the size of these dogs, and, they fear big dogs and people above all else, thanks to the local foxhounds and their owners. I take a moment to enjoy what I know to be the chorus of Eastern coyotes, the largest canid in these parts. They have taken the place of wolves that once roamed the hollows and ridges of central West Virginia. Most locals hate the coyotes as much as their forebears hated the wolves. Coyotes are shot, trapped, and run down with packs of hounds in much the same way that the wolves were hundreds of years ago. However, unlike the wolves, the coyote population has expanded in spite of this persecution. It is because of their resistance to our depredations that one cannot help but admire the coyote, which has spread from the deserts, mountains, and plains of the West to inhabit almost the entire continent of North America from Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama.

Classification

Coyotes are close relatives to wolves and domestic dogs. In fact, coyotes and wolves can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. This interbreeding is now a major threat to the endangered red wolf, which has been reintroduced into some parts of the South. (Some authorities, though, think that the red wolf as we know it now is a hybrid between a race of Southern gray wolf and the coyote). Domestic dogs also can interbreed with coyotes and produce fertile offspring, but this event is rare. Coyotes, both male and female, are only fertile during a

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 7
• Next Page >>