There was a story on ABC News about a coyote running wild in Central Park. Now captured, the plan is to send him back to the wild in Upstate NY. They offered no further explantion. So, are coyotes really native to (modern day) NY? I thought they were all pushed West ages ago. Any SDopers know the SD on this?
According to the Maryland DNR website:
So, actually they were never pushed West–they started there. I believe the elimination of most of the native wolf population along the eastern seaboard facilitated their moving east. It helps that coyotes seem better able to adapt to co-existing with humans than wolves.
Geez, and I thought land sharks were my biggest natural threat! :rolleyes:
And there’s a reasonable chance that a northeastern coyote is actually a coyote-wolf hybrid.
Heck, where some friends of mine live (about an hour north of NYC, west of the Hudson), you can sometimes hear packs of them howling at night. Not a good time to leave housepets outside.
I used to live in rural Orange County, New York, and it was not at all unusual to hear coyotes howling at night, although you rarely saw them. Two times I got quick glimpses of one running away from me while walking just at dawn. I also saw a coyote while hiking through Harriman State Park, less than an hour from NYC.
From Wikipedia:
In NH, there is no closed season for hunting them. There is even a season for hunting them at night…
At the bottom of this page, it shows the seasons.
Some of the guys at my F&G club hunt them for the pelts… not a lot of money in it, but they enjoy it, it saves some pets, deer, and other game, and removes a pest.
The town I work in has quite a few coyotes running around although that would be a surprise to most who live there. I have rarely seen them during the day and I have never heard them howling. That’s about 30 miles west of NYC. There is a NJ Transit train station a couple of miles from where I usually see them. That’s a straight shot into Penn Station and a quick cab ride to Central Park. Easy to see how one ended up in the park.
My Brother in Law shot one out his back door. It weighed 35 pounds. The DEC agent he talked to told him that he’d seen reports on E. Coyotes as big as 70 pounds. Apparently they established it was not a coydog (which is like a mule).
Coyotes and Black Bears and even Mountain Lions are still found in Upstate NY.
There was a Mountain Lion shot in Booneville within the last 20 years.
I wonder what states don’t have Coyotes other than Hawaii and maybe Alaska.
Jim
Massachusetts has plenty. Where I grew up in rural Louisiana has plenty. Texas does too. I think all the lower 48 states do.
Not really. A mule is almost always infertile, but coydogs would not be. Coyotes and wolves (wolves and dogs are the same species) probably shared a common ancestor less than 2M years ago. The horse/donkey line split further back in time, probably around 3M years ago.
It was my understanding that coydogs were infertile. That’s why they classify the Eastern Coyote differently. There have been coydogs around for years.
About The Coydog, Coyote Dog Hybrid Mix
The existence of true coyote dog hybrids, also known as coydogs or dogotes, is often the subject of hot debate. This is because, at first glance, the facts seem to be a little contradictory. For instance, there is little scientific evidence of coyotes and dogs breeding in the wild, however, it is a genetic fact that coyotes can breed with dogs and wolves, subsequently producing fertile offspring
Coydogs. Are they real creatures, or just the stuff of urban legend? As the name implies, a coydog would be a cross between a coyote and a dog. But according to Chrissie Henner, a biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, they’re an urban legend. She says that “there has never been any physical evidence of a half-dog, half-coyote animal.” Not that it would be impossible for the two species to mate and produce an offspring, just very unlikely. Though Henner also points out that the mating cycles of the two species differ: “Coyotes go in to heat between January and March and have pups in May or June, while dogs have their pups in winter.” So if animal experts such as Henner are correct that there’s no physical evidence of the existence of coydogs, then what exactly is the Sundance Coydogs site selling? Are these coyotes, or dogs that look coyote-like, or real coydogs?
http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2006/03_2006/03042006out1.htm
Too much to quote.
Enjoy,
Jim
Yes, we have plenty of coyotes.
We also have moose and squirrel. 
If coyotes and wolves (including the domesticated ones) are fully interfertile (meaning that the offspring are fertile, too), then shouldn’t they be considered the same species, just as wild wolves and domesticated dogs are? Given that there are coydogs running around, they do seem to interbreed on their own given the opportunity, so one can’t even claim a behavorial barrier.
Species isn’t an extremely tightly defined concept Chronos. Most of the firm rules about what defines a species are broken in some groups of animals and biologists still turn a blind eye and group the species the way that they want to.
Wolves and dogs and coyotes look differently and act differently. They once had more distinct ranges. The fertile interbreeding rule gets abandoned sometimes under those types of conditions.
Maybe. But species designations aren’t always drawn up strictly along the lines you mention. It’s all a matter of just how often they actually interbreed in the wild. If the answer is “not very often”, then it makes sense to call them distinct species. If there ranges really didn’t overlap, and there was considerable mixing at the borders between their ranges, then they’d probably have to be classified as one species.
I should mention that when I composed that, What Exit?'s post wasn’t there. I hadn’t realized that the existance of coydogs was controvertial, and if they really don’t exist in the wild, then my point starting with “Given that there are coydogs running around…” is clearly invalid.
I have seen (on Animal Planet & National Geographic Channel) many conflicting stories on Coydogs. There is a coydog type in the Georgia area that is believed to just be a strain of wild dogs that are now breeding true.
The NY Coydogs were mentioned to be half Coyote and half wolf but as I thought Wolves and Dogs were one species I don’t see the difference between a ½ dog or ½ wolf mix. The only thing I have seen consistently is that the offspring is suppose to be fertile.
Jim