Western North America is inhabited by a peculiar group of small
wolves, known as coyotes, this being a Spanish corruption of the Aztec
name _coyotl_. They range from northern Michigan, northern Alberta,
and British Columbia south to Costa Rica, and from western Iowa and
Texas to the Pacific coast. As a group they are animals of the open
plains and sparsely wooded districts, ranging from sea-level to above
timber-line on the highest mountains. They are most at home on the
wide brushy or grassy plains of the western United States and the
table-lands of Mexico.
Within their great area coyotes have developed several distinct species
and a number of geographic races, distinguished by differences in size,
color, and other characteristics. Some attain a size almost equaling
that of the gray wolf, while others are much smaller.
They are less courageous and have less of the social instinct than gray
wolves, and on the rare occasions when they hunt in packs they form,
no doubt, a family party, including the young of the year. They appear
to pair more or less permanently and commonly hunt in couples. The
young, sometimes numbering as many as fourteen, are born in a burrow
dug in a bank, or in a den among broken rocks and ledges. Young animals
are readily tamed, and it is entirely probable that some of the dogs
found by early explorers among western Indians may have descended from
coyotes.
Coyotes are a familiar sight to travelers in the wildest parts of the
West. Here and there one is seen trotting through the sagebrush or
other scrubby growth, or stopping to gaze curiously at the intruder. If
suddenly alarmed, they race away across the plains with amazing speed.
At night their high-pitched, wailing howls voice the lonely spirit of
waste places.
With the growth of settlement in the West and the steady decrease of
large and small game, coyotes have become more and more destructive
to poultry and all kinds of live stock. As a result, every man’s hand
is against them, reinforced by gun, trap, and poison. Despite years
of this persistent warfare, their acute intelligence, aided by their
extraordinary fecundity, has enabled them to hold their own over a
great part of their original range. Their depredations upon live stock
have been so great that many millions of dollars have been paid in
bounties for their destruction.
This method of control has proved so ineffective, however, that the
Federal Government has engaged in the task of suppressing them,
together with the other less numerous predatory animals of the West,
and has placed about 300 hunters in the field for this purpose. The
complete destruction of coyotes would, no doubt, upset the balance of
nature in favor of rabbits, prairie-dogs, and other harmful rodents,
and thus result in a very serious increase in the destruction of crops.
The coyote supplies much interest and local color to many dreary
landscapes and has become a prominent figure in the literature of the
West. There it is usually symbolic of shifty cunning and fleetness of
foot. Whatever his faults, the coyote is an amusing and interesting
beast, and it is hoped that the day of his complete disappearance from
our wild life may be far in the future.