By Russ Morey
Times Staff Writer
Anyone who commonly wakes in the early morning or is outside late at night has certainly heard the telltale yips and sharp barks of the eastern coyote, perhaps Connecticut’s most controversial animal. In recent years there has been much attention given to the fact that this animal poses a threat to small pets, and some residents even worry about attacks on humans.
These concerns, along with a number of myths, have created a pervasively negative view of one of the most interesting and impressive animals in our ecosystem. To truly understand this elusive canine, one must understand how they came to be Connecticut’s top predator.
With the colonization of New England in the 1600s came the eradication of its two top predators: the red wolf and the mountain lion. In addition, much of the woodlands was cleared for farmland, leaving little habitat for a major predator. Yet sometime around the early 1900s the western coyote began expanding its range, eventually making its way to the eastern states. Paul Rego, wildlife biologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, explained.
“Documentation of the [western coyote’s] range expansion does exist,” Rego said, “and that has occurred over a lot of North America actually, not just in our area. It’s believed that their range expanded into Connecticut sometime around the 1950s. There are a couple theories that have some merit as to why the coyote has expanded its range into Connecticut and elsewhere; one is the elimination of the mountain lion throughout much of its historic range, allowing this new predator to proliferate. The other thought is that forest re-growth that occurred over a wide area, especially here in Connecticut, allowed prey animals to increase, such as deer, so it made this area a better habitat for a coyote.”
Put simply, the presence of the eastern coyote in Connecticut is largely, and perhaps completely, a result of the changes humans have made on the northeastern environment. Yet simply understanding why they are here does not answer the numerous questions relating to the dangers they pose and whether their numbers continue to grow given the increased number of sightings. Rego acknowledged that eastern coyotes are certainly a threat to small pets, but believes eastern coyote numbers to be relatively stable.
“I think from a human conflict perspective, they definitely do attack pets and livestock,” Rego said. “They’re one of the animals out there that always has that potential. Whether that occurs at a tolerable level or not is certainly a value judgment. Other than that, there are people out there who worry about them attacking humans…but the probability of that is quite low. For us to detect an increase [in population], it would have to be pretty dramatic at this point. I wouldn’t say that there has been a dramatic increase or decrease in reports of coyotes to suggest any change in their population. And also, they’ve been here for so long and they have such a high reproductive rate that I believe they had spread over the state quite a while ago and kind of filled the available habitat [then].”
Contrary to the concern that the eastern coyote population has or will eventually become out of hand, the data collected shows the opposite, with Rego estimating that the number of eastern coyotes living in Connecticut is somewhere in the low thousands—4,000 at most. And while this is a rough figure, eastern coyote expert Jonathan Way agreed.
“I’d say that estimate is very accurate,” Way said. “We know that as a general rule of thumb, there is never more than one coyote per square mile…What I’m most amazed by is their movement patterns. It’s just incredible how much and how far they move, to the effect that a family of three or four adults can really be seen in fairly dramatically different areas in a developed area. And those three or four animals in a typical family unit can honestly be seen by many people as multiple or even dozens of coyotes. Their movement patterns alone can be deceiving. You see tracks here and you see tracks three miles away—the average person doesn’t think it’s the same animals and my research has found repeatedly that very easily it can be the same animals.”
Way, who received his M.S. from the University of Connecticut at Storrs and his Ph.D. from Boston College, recently published the book Suburban Howls and is considered by many to be one of the leading researchers of the eastern coyote. He is the head researcher of the eastern coyote ecology project, Eastern Coyote Research (ECR) and once studied the coyotes for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. Having researched the animal for many years, both in its natural habitat and in captivity, and having actually raised a group of eastern coyote pups himself, it is Way’s hope that people will eventually understand all the misconceptions and come to appreciate the eastern coyote for the remarkable animal that it is. And the first myth that Way has disproved is that the eastern coyote is not actually a coyote.
“What probably happened is around the turn of the century, late 1800s, early 1900s, western coyotes were migrating east and small, remnant numbers of wolves were either present in the northern states along the Canadian border, or in Canada itself where they still exist today,” Way explained. “It seems that those two animals hybridized and became a very good, viable species, bigger than western coyotes and obviously smaller than the wolves that were here before. And as this group started breeding true, they began colonizing from the north to the south. So this animal began just naturally colonizing back to where it used to be, except now it is more of a hybrid than a true wolf. This animal is literally a new species, partly because of our making. I’m working with a geneticist, Brad White, at Trent University, and the genetics tell us for sure that this animal is a coyote-wolf hybrid. In fact we’re in the process of changing their species name to call them coywolves as opposed to coyotes to properly reflect what they are.”
The coywolf, as Way calls it, is essentially Mother Nature’s way of providing a solution to an imbalance, in this case, interbreeding wolves and coyotes to reintroduce a top predator into an area in need of one. With the renowned adaptability of the coyote, the coywolf has done a remarkable job of reclaiming previously lost territories. Way explained that the reintroduction of a top predator into the Northeast has had positive effects on the overall ecosystem as well.
“I think what a lot of people—especially those who regulate the animals, like the fish and game department—haven’t done is really value these, as well as other predators, as part of the food chain and trophic dynamics,” Way said. “Quite a few studies have shown that without animals like coyotes or coywolves around, either here or out west, you have a dramatic change in ecosystem structure where all of the sudden you have lots of smaller predators, called meso-predators like skunks, foxes, and raccoons, and those meso-predators can have more of a collective influence on birds, certainly song birds, and maybe even shore birds, than coyotes and larger predators.”
In addition, Way pointed out that the coywolf also helps to keep deer populations down to some degree, and as time goes on, might even adapt to form somewhat larger family units capable of bringing down larger adult deer more proficiently. Way also acknowledged that small pets and livestock are at risk of attack in many areas where coywolves and people coincide, but he emphasized that there are a number of measures one can take to prevent such an occurrence. Cats and small dogs, for instance, should not be let out unattended late at night and should be fed indoors, and dogs should never be tied up in an unfenced yard. Way pointed out that coyotes are just one of many ways a small pet could be hurt or killed if left outside alone. And as far as being a danger to humans, Way compared the 4.7 million dog bites per year with the three or four documented coywolf bites in Massachusetts history.
Overall, it seems the story of the coywolf is that of so many other species of animal trying to exist in a world of constant human encroachment. While occasionally crossing paths seems inevitable, the bottom line is that not only does the coywolf have every right to exist in Connecticut, but it also fills a vital role in the ecosystem that was missing for many years.
“I think that overall ecological perspective now leads us into where research needs to go…trophic dynamics, because not only are these animals here to stay, but it’s also completely natural to have them here,” Way said. “Even though we didn’t have a large predator around here for quite some time, they are very similar to the red wolves that used to live in New England. Research is finally showing the importance of predators throughout ecosystems. I don’t think society has caught on because we only look at our small world of losing our cats, which is unfortunate, but these animals have many positive roles that we are beginning to uncover, whether it’s keeping meso-predators down or preying on deer, they are here to stay and are an important part of our ecosystem.
“To me it’s sad that many states’ fish and game industries cater so much to hunters and also don’t appreciate the full value of this animal,” Way continued. “Most states, in one way or another, allow basically an unlimited slaughter of these animals which is just appalling when you consider that what we’ve found in our work is that they are amazingly social, family-oriented animals. And to me it’s really pretty much a wildlife crime for how they’re treated.”
For further information or to support Eastern Coyote Research, please visit www.easterncoyoteresearch.com.