Coyotes are common on the desert slope of the San Gabriels below about
6000 feet elevation. They seem not, or only rarely, to penetrate the
yellow pine forest belt, but tracks have been found occasionally near
the lower edge of the forest, as at the head of Mescal Canyon. In the
more open parts of the pinyon-juniper association, sign of coyotes was
noted and they were the dominant carnivores in the juniper belt and
Joshua tree woodland.
In the upper part of the pinyon-juniper association coyotes travel and
forage in sage flats, along ridges, and in sandy draws, avoiding the
extensive patches of scrub oak and mountain mahogany, and the steep,
rocky, pinyon-covered slopes. It is apparent that the local ranges of
the coyote and the gray fox in the pinyon-juniper belt are
complementary, the gray fox keeping to the more thickly wooded or brushy
parts of the area, and the coyote staying in the relatively open
sections. Probably there is little competition for food there between
these two canids.
As evidenced by tracks, coyotes commonly traveled and hunted along
desert washes, probably because of the larger population of rodents and
rabbits there. Below Graham Canyon three fairly recently inhabited dens
of coyotes were found in the cutbanks at the edge of a dry wash in
December of 1951. The cutbanks were six to ten feet high, and the dens
were dug into the banks about three feet above the floor of the wash.
On the evening of October 20, 1948, near Desert Springs, Steven M.
Jacobs and I set out a line of fifty wooden live traps for kangaroo
rats. That night we slept about 300 yards from the middle of the line
which was roughly three quarters of a mile long. When we tended the
traps the next morning we found the tracks of a coyote over our own
tracks of the previous day, and the first trap that had seemingly held a
kangaroo rat was chewed and dragged for about fifty feet. Each trap that
had held a rodent had been turned upside down so that the door had
opened. At one point in the line where we had walked for about two
hundred yards without setting a trap the coyote had followed every twist
and turn of our trail. The animal had followed out the entire trap line
and removed approximately eight rodents from the traps, reducing our
take to one _Dipodomys_ and one _Peromyscus_.
Examinations of feces showed that in the period from 1948 to 1952, while
populations of jack rabbits were low in the Mojave Desert, the coyotes
had fed extensively on smaller mammals such as kangaroo rats, and to
some extent on fruit. By contrasting the present food habits of coyotes
on the desert and coastal slopes of the mountains support is afforded
for Errington's (1937:243) statement that predation is "a by-product of
population." On the desert slope, with low populations of rabbits, the
coyotes have turned to lesser species of prey; while on the Pacific
slope, where populations of rabbits were high, the rabbits made up the
major portion of the coyote's diet. On the desert slope, remains of the
following food items were identified from coyote feces: kangaroo rats,
mule deer, jack rabbits, passerine bird, manzanita and juniper fruit,
beetles, grapes and apples. Near Valyermo, coyote feces were composed
mostly of apples from nearby orchards. A female coyote killed below
Grandview Canyon had its stomach and intestines stuffed with apples in
large chunks. In the juniper belt, berries of juniper were often eaten
by coyotes.
The three specimens of coyotes from the desert slope are clearly
referable to the desert race _C. l. mearnsi_, both with regard to
cranial and pelage characteristics. Although I collected no specimens
from Cajon Pass or the passes at the west end of the range, it is in
these places that intergradation might be expected to occur between the
desert race _C. l. mearnsi_ and the coastal and valley subspecies _C. l.
ochropus_, as the higher parts of the San Gabriels seem to constitute a
barrier to coyotes.
A subadult female coyote taken in the Joshua tree belt near Graham
Canyon weighed 20.8 pounds.
_Specimens examined._--Los Angeles County: 6 mi. E and 2 mi. S
Llano, 3600 ft., 3 (2 PC).
=Vulpes macrotis arsipus= Elliot