Coyotes in the USA
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="Microsoft Word 97">
<TITLE>Coyotes in America</TITLE>
<META NAME="Template" CONTENT="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\html.dot">
</HEAD>
<BODY LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#800080" BGCOLOR="#c0c0c0">
<U><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4><P ALIGN="CENTER">Coyotes in the </FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4 COLOR="#ff0000">U.</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4 COLOR="#ffffff">S.</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4 COLOR="#0000ff">A.</P>
</U></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=2><P>	The United States Government, ranchers and stockmen view coyotes </FONT><B><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=2>(Canis Latrans)</B></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=2> as a scourge and blight upon the land. Since the 1920's the ADC (The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Control Branch) has waged a war against the coyote, by hunting, trapping, poisoning and other various methods. In 1989, government hunters killed 86,502 coyotes in the U.S. alone. These figures have increased an average of ten percent yearly. Nor have they acted alone. Every state government and most ranchers and stockmen have always shot them on sight. However, don't despair. Despite the billions of dollars spent every year on this insane predator control program, coyotes are now even MORE abundant than ever before in their long history.</P>
<P>	In addition to keeping their numbers up in western North America, their original range, they have now expanded across <B><U>ALL</B></U> of North America and from the outlying rural areas into actual populated areas. I myself have seen three in the past year, despite living less than twenty miles from one of the largest cities on Earth (Chicago).</P>
<P>	Only recently have researchers begun to study these amazing animals. The war waged by the ADC on this one species has only transformed a once adaptable and clever animal into a more adaptable, more prolific and possibly even indestructible species. Whole populations of coyotes now reproduce earlier and earlier every year and are bearing larger and larger litters than ever before to compensate for their losses.</P>
<P>	It has also changed their traditional methods of hunting. Instead of focusing on small animals, from voles to roadrunners to jackrabbits (These are already vanishing species because of ranch stock overgrazing.) they now have begun preying on domestic calves and especially lambs to feed ever-increasingly-larger litters. In other words, the ADC made a minor problem far worse by disrupting the entire social system of the animal. What we have today is not the clever "song dog" of Native American folklore, instead we now quite literally have a "super dog".</P>
<P>	Coyotes aren't large animals. Average males measure between four and five feet from nose to tail tip and they stand about two feet at the shoulder. Average weight is about 30 pounds, the largest ever recorded was seventy pounds. Females are most always smaller and weigh slightly less.</P>
<P>	Coyotes mate for life. Mating season lasts from about late January to early March. Gestation of the pups lasts about two months and an average litter is five or six, though a record of seventeen pups at once is recorded to have occurred. The maximum known age of a wild coyote, tagged as a pup, so far has been just over twelve years. However, the current average from birth (due to hunting, trapping, poisoning, etc...) is only two or three years. The father assists the mother in the raising of the young and does most of the hunting. The young will remain near the den for several months, before striking out to find territory of their own.</P>
<P>	The coyotes howl is one of the most complex aspects of the animal. They seem to howl for various reasons, including to mark the location of a kill as their own and warn others away, to mark the location of a kill and invite members of its immediate family group, as a warning of danger and many other reasons as well. At other times they seem to howl for no reason what so ever. Of all the facets of this remarkable animal, howling is the most readily apparent, yet the least understood.</P></FONT></BODY>
</HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="Microsoft Word 97">
<TITLE>Coyotes in America</TITLE>
<META NAME="Template" CONTENT="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\html.dot">
</HEAD>
<BODY LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#800080" BGCOLOR="#c0c0c0">
<U><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4><P ALIGN="CENTER">Coyotes in the </FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4 COLOR="#ff0000">U.</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4 COLOR="#ffffff">S.</FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=4 COLOR="#0000ff">A.</P>
</U></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=2><P>	The United States Government, ranchers and stockmen view coyotes </FONT><B><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=2>(Canis Latrans)</B></FONT><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" SIZE=2> as a scourge and blight upon the land. Since the 1920's the ADC (The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Control Branch) has waged a war against the coyote, by hunting, trapping, poisoning and other various methods. In 1989, government hunters killed 86,502 coyotes in the U.S. alone. These figures have increased an average of ten percent yearly. Nor have they acted alone. Every state government and most ranchers and stockmen have always shot them on sight. However, don't despair. Despite the billions of dollars spent every year on this insane predator control program, coyotes are now even MORE abundant than ever before in their long history.</P>
<P>	In addition to keeping their numbers up in western North America, their original range, they have now expanded across <B><U>ALL</B></U> of North America and from the outlying rural areas into actual populated areas. I myself have seen three in the past year, despite living less than twenty miles from one of the largest cities on Earth (Chicago).</P>
<P>	Only recently have researchers begun to study these amazing animals. The war waged by the ADC on this one species has only transformed a once adaptable and clever animal into a more adaptable, more prolific and possibly even indestructible species. Whole populations of coyotes now reproduce earlier and earlier every year and are bearing larger and larger litters than ever before to compensate for their losses.</P>
<P>	It has also changed their traditional methods of hunting. Instead of focusing on small animals, from voles to roadrunners to jackrabbits (These are already vanishing species because of ranch stock overgrazing.) they now have begun preying on domestic calves and especially lambs to feed ever-increasingly-larger litters. In other words, the ADC made a minor problem far worse by disrupting the entire social system of the animal. What we have today is not the clever "song dog" of Native American folklore, instead we now quite literally have a "super dog".</P>
<P>	Coyotes aren't large animals. Average males measure between four and five feet from nose to tail tip and they stand about two feet at the shoulder. Average weight is about 30 pounds, the largest ever recorded was seventy pounds. Females are most always smaller and weigh slightly less.</P>
<P>	Coyotes mate for life. Mating season lasts from about late January to early March. Gestation of the pups lasts about two months and an average litter is five or six, though a record of seventeen pups at once is recorded to have occurred. The maximum known age of a wild coyote, tagged as a pup, so far has been just over twelve years. However, the current average from birth (due to hunting, trapping, poisoning, etc...) is only two or three years. The father assists the mother in the raising of the young and does most of the hunting. The young will remain near the den for several months, before striking out to find territory of their own.</P>
<P>	The coyotes howl is one of the most complex aspects of the animal. They seem to howl for various reasons, including to mark the location of a kill as their own and warn others away, to mark the location of a kill and invite members of its immediate family group, as a warning of danger and many other reasons as well. At other times they seem to howl for no reason what so ever. Of all the facets of this remarkable animal, howling is the most readily apparent, yet the least understood.</P></FONT></BODY>
</HTML>
