D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
May 2010
Song-Dog of the Southwest
Our love-hate affair with the wily coyote.
By Jay W. Sharp
Generally speaking, I prefer coyotes to most politicians. I would much rather listen to mournful midnight howling than to blatant political spinning. I would rather watch a coyote run down a desert cottontail or a kangaroo rat than see one of our elected representatives chase shamelessly after a lobbyist's dollars or sexy young staff members. I know that the coyote has done a better job in adapting to relentless human encroachment than our senators and representatives have done in finding solutions to our nation's problems.
Oh, well.
I remember the first time that I ever hear the coyote howl. I was a little boy, maybe four or five years old, growing up in the dusty, wind-blown farm and ranch country of the Rolling Plains of Texas back in the 1930s.
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A coyote eyes potential prey at the
Bosque del Apache. (Photo by Jay W. Sharp) |
I was spending the night with my grandparents, who lived in a small white frame house on a thousand acres of cultivated land and pasture 10 miles south of the nearest community. We had all gone to bed. I lay beneath the covers, peering into the night's blackness and listening to my grandparents' deep and even breathing. I heard the howling begin, full throated and soulful, the voice of a fearful demon of the darkness.
"What was that?" I blurted out, feeling a shiver. I heard my grandfather stir. I heard another howl, farther away this time. I felt my grandfather's hand on my shoulder.
"Those are just coyotes," he said.
"What are they doing?" I asked.
"They're singing," he said. In a little while, I felt his hand relax on my shoulder, and I heard him breathing deeply again.
I listened to the coyotes' singing, which grew fainter and finally faded away. After a while, I went to sleep, too.
A Love/Hate Affair
Over time, I came to have a certain affection for the coyote — for me, the iconic and communicative voice of the Southwest. I learned that he howled to assert his claim to territory or to issue a plea for a mate, that he yipped in pursuit of prey, and that he barked and growled as a warning against intrusions or threats. I found that, given a chance, he would raid my parents' hen house, but that was fine with me because I hated cleaning up after all those damn chickens in any event. While we may have had a barnyard cat or two disappear — after all, the coyote is related to the dog — I don't recall a coyote ever taking down a single one of our cattle or horses or pigs.
I understood, though, that a lot of people hated the coyote, which will, on occasion, kill valuable livestock and, on rare occasions, even attack people. I knew when bounty hunters came to thin out the coyote population in the Rolling Plains, because they would hang the carcasses on pastureland fence posts. I remember once counting 35 coyote carcasses hanging like a row of furred and rotting trophies on the cedar posts of a barbed-wire fence that separated pastures in the Pease River Breaks, near the southeast corner of the Texas Panhandle.
The following spring, the rodents, freed from a key predator, proliferated. They would scatter before you, rustling the curly mesquite and buffalo grasses as you walked across the pastures.
Wily Coyote
Supremely adaptable, adventurous, bold and clever, the coyote has expanded its range and increased its population across much of the North American continent. Our coyote here in the Southwest compares in size to a small German shepherd. Spindly-legged but swift, the coyote wears a coat that runs silvery-gray to brown down the back, creamy on the belly, and rusty on its legs. It sports a tail that is black-tipped, much like that of the wolf. It seems to me that the coyote of the desert is lighter and smaller than the coyote of Texas' Rolling Plains.
A true scavenger and opportunist, the coyote will, as William H. Burt and Richard P. Grossenheider say in A Field Guide to the Mammals of America North of Mexico, "eat almost anything animal or vegetable." Our desert coyote preys predominantly on black-tailed jackrabbits, desert cottontails and small rodents, although it will also feed on reptiles, insects, carrion and even berries, mesquite beans and garden melons. It may hunt in relays with a companion coyote, with the two yipping alternately during a chase. It follows hunting routes that may range well over 10 miles. It may cache uneaten food.
Our coyote usually digs its den in the desert soil, although it may choose any number of other sheltering locations. It mates in the wintertime, and after a gestation period of about two months, the coyote mother produces a litter of perhaps a half-dozen pups, typically with only one managing to survive into adulthood. The coyote and his mate both contribute to the support of the litter, although he is not invited into her den or to her dinner table. When the puppies reach a couple of months old, the mother, probably having had enough of coyote babies, teaches her pups to hunt and prepares them for independence.
Perhaps more than any other of the larger predators, the opportunistic coyote has learned to capitalize on human intrusions, staking out an uneasy relationship with mostly unwilling partners. He often turns up at unexpected and unwelcome times, like the lovable slob of a cousin who always manages to pop in just before prospective in-laws or your new boss and his wife arrive for a formal dinner.
The coyote can be a little unnerving. In the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico, my wife and I have seen coyotes scavenging camp sites and raiding garbage cans. Once, we had one snuffle at the very doorway of our tent in the middle of the night. I sort of liked him, but my wife, Martha, would not have a thing to do with him. Since I wanted to remain invited to her den and dining table, I didn't protest too much.
At our home in suburban El Paso, back in the 1980s and 1990s, we had coyotes come up from the desert arroyo behind our house, jump the fence of our backyard, and drink water from our swimming pool.