By that same logic, it would make sense for me to ask you why the coyotes who cut thru my yard do it single file spaced ~30 feet apart…
So I’m gonna ask, because it’s fucking weird and I genuinely can’t figure out why them walking out of a bush is like a bunch of clowns getting out of a car, it’s just goes on way longer than possible. That bush can’t hold a dozen coyotes, so are they queuing up on the other side?
Is the delay how long it takes to go thru a bush? If so why don’t they just walk around all at once?
You’re literally the only back alley coyote I’ve seen capable of human communication, loop me in bro.
Only one is the real coyote, the rest are Acme brand automated decoys so the roadrunner doesn’t know which to run from.
But actually, what you are probably seeing is a stealth move. Most of what coyotes hunt don’t have the benefit of our height and field of vision, one coyote at a time looks like one coyote instead of a pack. Also reduces the sound of the pack moving if everyone goes down the same trail. When you see them doing this they’re probably not even hunting, but moving around their territory while trying to remain unobtrusive.
Coyotes pack structure was misunderstood up until about 50yrs ago. They have always been capable of forming packs, and like wolves their default is family. You probably see mom or dad go first, then younger, then the other parent. Compared to wolves though they are not as strict about how they build a pack, they have more fluid membership and killing one of the mating pair is not as detrimental to the survival of the pack as it is for wolves. Plus, coyote diet makes them much scrappier survivors if they have to go solo.
Out of curiosity, is your home rural, suburban, or urban? Their base nature remains the same but they adjust to environment. I’m going to lean on this being a well established route they know is safe for moving between the den, water, and food, but they also know there’s neighborhood dogs, traffic patterns, humans that might chase/harm them, and are just doing what they’ve always done to minimize risks.
Compared to wolves though they are not as strict about how they build a pack, they have more fluid membership and killing one of the mating pair is not as detrimental to the survival of the pack as it is for wolves
Coyotes are worse…
A “pack” is always a family. And while with the parents, the kids don’t reproduce, even though the daughters have false pregnancies that feel like giving labor.
If one or both of the parents are killed, the pack splits, and now where there was just one mating pair, there’s 2-4x that.
It’s why literal centuries of “shoot as many coyotes as you can” hasn’t negatively effected the American coyote population.
Any attempt other than “spay and neuter” will result in exponentially more coyotes, evolutionarily speaking, its a great strategy for a non-alpha predator. If coyotes run into something that can kill a coyote, they just make a shit ton more coyotes.
But if they are “safe” they limit their own population so they don’t run out of food.
Yup. I realize my “fluid” comment could be seen as implying they build packs out of random strangers, which is not the case. The fluidity is that while older family members can and will disperse, they can also return without disrupting the hierarchy as needed, then just as quickly head out again.
Resource rich environments will also stimulate increased ovulation in females; we can boom as needed and weather the bust. We don’t need large territories, just patches here and there we can get to (like your backyard trail). Ungulates are tasty, but I’ll eat rats and garbage. Wolves are pretty cool and intense, but try as you might you can’t rid yourself of the coyote. Improvise, adapt, survive.
By that same logic, it would make sense for me to ask you why the coyotes who cut thru my yard do it single file spaced ~30 feet apart…
So I’m gonna ask, because it’s fucking weird and I genuinely can’t figure out why them walking out of a bush is like a bunch of clowns getting out of a car, it’s just goes on way longer than possible. That bush can’t hold a dozen coyotes, so are they queuing up on the other side?
Is the delay how long it takes to go thru a bush? If so why don’t they just walk around all at once?
You’re literally the only back alley coyote I’ve seen capable of human communication, loop me in bro.
Only one is the real coyote, the rest are Acme brand automated decoys so the roadrunner doesn’t know which to run from.
But actually, what you are probably seeing is a stealth move. Most of what coyotes hunt don’t have the benefit of our height and field of vision, one coyote at a time looks like one coyote instead of a pack. Also reduces the sound of the pack moving if everyone goes down the same trail. When you see them doing this they’re probably not even hunting, but moving around their territory while trying to remain unobtrusive.
Coyotes pack structure was misunderstood up until about 50yrs ago. They have always been capable of forming packs, and like wolves their default is family. You probably see mom or dad go first, then younger, then the other parent. Compared to wolves though they are not as strict about how they build a pack, they have more fluid membership and killing one of the mating pair is not as detrimental to the survival of the pack as it is for wolves. Plus, coyote diet makes them much scrappier survivors if they have to go solo.
Out of curiosity, is your home rural, suburban, or urban? Their base nature remains the same but they adjust to environment. I’m going to lean on this being a well established route they know is safe for moving between the den, water, and food, but they also know there’s neighborhood dogs, traffic patterns, humans that might chase/harm them, and are just doing what they’ve always done to minimize risks.
Coyotes are worse…
A “pack” is always a family. And while with the parents, the kids don’t reproduce, even though the daughters have false pregnancies that feel like giving labor.
If one or both of the parents are killed, the pack splits, and now where there was just one mating pair, there’s 2-4x that.
It’s why literal centuries of “shoot as many coyotes as you can” hasn’t negatively effected the American coyote population.
Any attempt other than “spay and neuter” will result in exponentially more coyotes, evolutionarily speaking, its a great strategy for a non-alpha predator. If coyotes run into something that can kill a coyote, they just make a shit ton more coyotes.
But if they are “safe” they limit their own population so they don’t run out of food.
Yup. I realize my “fluid” comment could be seen as implying they build packs out of random strangers, which is not the case. The fluidity is that while older family members can and will disperse, they can also return without disrupting the hierarchy as needed, then just as quickly head out again.
Resource rich environments will also stimulate increased ovulation in females; we can boom as needed and weather the bust. We don’t need large territories, just patches here and there we can get to (like your backyard trail). Ungulates are tasty, but I’ll eat rats and garbage. Wolves are pretty cool and intense, but try as you might you can’t rid yourself of the coyote. Improvise, adapt, survive.