The Eastern Coyote / Coywolf

I find coyotes completely fascinating. They are smart, beautiful, clever and yes, wily. I can’t put my finger on the moment my intrigue of, and respect for them really blossomed, but I know that by the time I had finished Hope Ryden’s book God’s Dog in 1998 I was hooked. When I entered Antioch University at New England to pursue a Master’s of Science degree in Conservation Biology, I knew that I wanted this animal to be the focus of my independent studies, and worked over the next few years to learn as much about them as I could. After several seasons of tracking their movements in northern Massachusetts, scouring scientific journals, and a trip to Yellowstone National Park to study them and their larger cousins the gray wolf, I felt like I had made some inroads into understanding Canis latrans.

When I present eastern coyote information to audiences at presentations, students in school & scout groups, or participants on tracking or other natural history programs, I try to remain scientifically objective despite my partiality. That holds true for the information on the following pages. What I have assembled here was obtained through my years studying coyotes directly and indirectly, and includes data from outside sources, which is cited where present.

As a caveat to the above statement however, I will say that it is hard to remain completely objective towards a creature I am not only passionate about, but which still continues to receive so much negative press. As a naturalist I believe it is important to share the factual information I have acquired about coyotes – both to counter the sometimes overblown and negative misconceptions people have about them, and to give people a view into a small but detailed part of the natural world.

    – C. Menard