The Coyote, Coydogs, Coywolves, and Coyotes in Urban Environments.

Likely one moment here where I live it could well be dead silence in the night or even just before sundown, and then, without any notice to speak of, the night could erupt in screams and howls so vicious sounding as to be frightening. Mostly, the fright is due to the sudden change in the sound scape of my environment.

They most often sound like demons, tormented in hell, urging one onward towards damnation, and as often as not, mixed into it all is the sound of horrific laughter, the kind of laughter that a demented abuser would use as he lashes out at his victim in spite.

Other times, it just sounds cool.

Though I have plenty of neighbours around, there is also just beyond the houses here, a creek bottom and a lot of unpopulated woodlands. Coyotes here are often heard, and seldom seen. Maybe once in a while someone will see one creeping about in the early morning hours around dawn.

In the town of Kaufman, Texas; and in the city cemetery, a very old cemetery by local standards - I once drove through and saw a coyote with someone's family cat in it's mouth. It was shocking to see because of how densely populated the particular area of the town is. I'd imagine that the large cemetery does provide some meals at nights though, as surely rabbits and squirrels are all over the place there.

I thought the thing looked like Satan, and it surely knew that it was getting away with something - it's pointed ears resembled devil horns.

Here in Kaufman County, Texas - it used to not be uncommon while travelling down rural farm to market roads to see dead coyotes hanging on fences. This was the common practice for farmers or ranchers who'd shot coyotes, and the dead one hanging on a fence would serve to allow the other coyotes the opportunity to realize that they'd maybe do better finding another place to hunt or hang out.

I seriously doubt that coyotes were ever much cognizant of the idea of property lines regulated and defined by barbed wire fences, but then again the critters are surely vastly more intelligent than we typically give them credit for.

Last I checked there was still a five dollar bounty on coyotes on the books here. I wonder where I should turn in my dead coyotes and collect my cash?

I'm joking, of course, about my dead coyotes....I've never shot a coyote, they're pretty hard to ever even see, though at any moment I know it's likely to sound like they're having a party just outside my door. I was NOT joking, however, about the five dollar bounty per dead coyote being on "the books" here. I'd imagine that such rewards are legally binding in many counties in Texas and across the nation.

Now the first two text blocks up above I wrote last night, and sure enough, not long after I turned off my computer to get some sleep....the howling began. It sounded like an absolute party just behind me in our cow pasture.

Coyotes are smart, very smart. They seemed to have known that because the lights were off here in this little trailer by my parent's house, that it was time for them to play. I had half a mind to throw on some boots, and fly out the door with a spotlight to have a look at them, but they'd have vanished in an instant. Coyotes are the fastest moving canines in the whole Genus. They can run as fast as forty miles per hour, and they can leap as far as fourteen feet.

Compared to the average family dog, a coyote is some sort of super dog, certainly he is an Olympic athlete among mere pets.

Though it's true that I'm near to a large creek bottom land, the entire area that I've always lived in grows increasingly urban. I dislike this very very much, and wish half of these people would just go bankrupt and find somewhere else to go, leaving their homes to rot into the surrounding gloom. Nothing against them much, I just don't want them next to me and my coyotes. In this way the coyotes and I differ. The coyotes don't seem to much mind that there are more and more houses everywhere - they merely adapt and keep on being coyotes.

I'm told that there is a sizeable population of coyotes inside the city of Los Angeles. No doubt that every major US city featuring some place to hide in some bit of woods also has coyotes within it's limits.

Some of the meals of coyotes are rather unpleasant. Especially notable is your small dog, coyotes will eat your small dog whenever it becomes available to them. I can't help but imagine that your cat would be preferable to a coyote, but I can't speak for coyotes. I used to keep cats, and I love cats; but I'm in a small trailer and me and the cat would need some space and alone time here and there. Years ago I lived in my parent's house which is next door. The parent's aren't much for cats inside of their home, and so we'd sometimes find cat heads, the heads of OUR cats in our yards.

I can only imagine that coyotes had ate the rest of our cats, as our dogs were pretty chummy with their feline co - pets here on the Shaw farm.

Coyotes are purely opportunistic eaters, and ninety percent of what they eat is meat; any meat, dead or living, is fine food for a coyote. Voles, mice, rats, rabbits, squirrels, deer, cats, dogs, bugs, lizards, snakes, and javelina (where available) are all coyote foods of choice, but coyotes do eat fruits and vegetables during the Fall and Winter.

Please do take care. Coyotes in hard times will become bold and attack a human fully intending to eat him. It's happened before, and will happen again. Most often coyotes attacking humans occur in cases of rabid coyotes - but hungry coyotes will do this as well. Joggers have reported being shadowed by coyotes, and someone who allows their toddler to play unattended in their yard in coyote territory is simply asking that their child be taken from them in a flash of teeth.

I feel like I'm sort of spreading fear here, but that is not my intention. I'm only trying to spread information. The fate of the lovely young folk singer/guitarist in the following video/link below was proved to have been at the hands of RABID coyotes. Coyote attacks are rare, but they do happen.

You shouldn't take this wrong, but if a coyote will eat you, and it's cousin, the dog - then you shouldn't be surprised to know that sometimes coyotes will eat coyote puppies as well.

Not only will coyotes eat your dogs, coyotes will also breed with your dogs. Yes, I know, that's sort of strange. I think it's a matter of either being hungry or horny, and the coyotes live to live and damn the rest of it.

Wolves will also kill coyotes, but they do not eat them. Wolves are competing with coyotes for the same sorts of meals, and they dislike competition in the same way as did John D. Rockefeller, they view it as a sin. Wolves, however, will also breed with coyotes, and this is pretty common.

I recall having a conversation with one of my grandfathers once about coyotes, and my grandfather told me that coyotes here have a lot of timber wolf in them. That may well be true, but here in North Central Texas, it might be more true to say that a lot of the coyotes have red wolves genetic strains in them. Red Wolves are not Timber Wolves, as the term timber wolf refers to Grey Wolves.

Coydogs are thought to be most common in Texas and Oklahoma because the warm weather promotes a longer mating season for the coyotes. Coyotes are seasonal specific breeders while dogs will simply go at it year round.

Coywolfs are most often found in the North East, and in Maine, most the coyotes caught and studied were actually to some degree or another, Coywolves. A study in Maine of one hundred coyotes found that out of the one hundred, twenty two of the individuals studied were actually more wolf than coyote.

To further confuse things, a significant number of biologist believe that Red Wolves were really just coywolves from the beginning. So not only was my late grandfather possibly right about the coyotes and timber wolves, it could be that he was even speaking directly about the red wolves - which were surely much more prevalent during his younger years than they are now.

Suffice it to say, wolves, coyotes, and dogs can all interbreed, and not only can they, they do, they have, and they will again. I also think that it's not truly important for most persons to know whether what they've seen was a wolf, a red wolf, a coyote, a coydog, a coywolf, a grey wolf, or just a very grey looking German Shepherd. If it seems threatening to you, then get away from it, or throw some rocks at it. If it's not bothering you, then don't try to feed it, as it will only come back and want more easy meals, but please, don't shoot dogs, coyotes, or wolves or any combination of their genetic materials unless you are being threatened.

Please leave the foxes out of all of this, they aren't interested in the frolicking and debauchery of their cousins - very healthy mindset have the wise foxes!

Coyotes are the ultimate Native Americans. They are entirely symbolic of the great frontier, and their howl is ubiquitous in relation to thoughts of the wide open and wild places. It's a great testament to the amazing biological superiority of the Coyote that it's howl is now also synonymous to evening in the suburbs.

While wolves are known to be Eurasian in origination, the Coyote is entirely an American animal that developed side by side millions of years ago with the much larger Dire Wolf. Modern American wolves crossed the Bering Straight, same as did the ancient Mongols that became the Native American Indians.

Quite literally, the coyotes were here before we were, and will likely be here after we are all gone. You have to be a cockroach to be a life form more adaptable and successful than a coyote, and that, my friends, is debatable.

Speaking of Native Americans, the coyote is a HUGE part of native American Folklore..Almost universally in such Folklore of the Natives, the coyote is a trickster that even the Gods are fooled by. Little wonder that is, for he who is heard so frequently and so seldom seen.