The hated, feared—and admired—Coyote

I have a half-mile loop around my house that I use as a walk­ing path. The rest of the ten acres is wild: tall fes­cue grass dot­ted with cone­flower, milk­weed, wild sun­flow­ers, and tiny yel­low prim­rose. It’s also filled with chig­gers, poi­son ivy, ticks, and snakes galore, so I admire its beau­ty from the rel­a­tive safe­ty of the mowed path.

The best time is in sum­mer, just after a mow­ing, when turkeys, deer, rac­coons, fox­es, birds, and ground­hogs come to scav­enge the short­er grass­es for sus­te­nance. This week, on an ear­ly morn­ing stroll, I came face-to-face with a coy­ote. He raised his head, snout bloody from his fresh kill. We locked eyes, and I backed up slow­ly, giv­ing him a wide berth. He chuffed in warn­ing but clear­ly saw me as no threat and returned to his meal. So I stood there and watched, mes­mer­ized to be this close to such a beau­ti­ful creature.

Now, ask any­one from Appalachia, and nine of ten peo­ple will tell you how much they detest coy­otes as nui­sances that pose a threat to live­stock and pets. And I take their point. We are pret­ty sure coy­otes have killed at least two of our cats in the last 25 years. But every­body has to eat, am I right? I refuse to hate this animal.

In the wild song of evo­lu­tion, few crea­tures have com­posed a melody as resilient and resource­ful as the coy­ote. Once con­fined to the open plains of the American West, Canis latrans—the “bark­ing dog”— has writ­ten itself into the land­scapes of near­ly every part of North America, not only sur­viv­ing but thriving.

Coyotes first evolved in North America around one mil­lion years ago, descen­dants of an ancient lin­eage of canids. Unlike their larg­er cousins—the wolf and the dire wolf— coy­otes spe­cial­ized in being small, swift, and cun­ning. During the last Ice Age, many preda­tors per­ished. But coy­otes, ever the oppor­tunists, diver­si­fied their diet and expand­ed their range. They are wild yet urban, soli­tary yet social, feared yet admired.

Coyotes will eat any­thing: rodents, berries, garbage, road­kill. They will raise their pups in rocky dens, storm drains, or beneath gar­den sheds. When humans altered the world with high­ways and sub­urbs, coy­otes sim­ply moved in. They became the great gen­er­al­ists, thriv­ing pre­cise­ly because they refused to spe­cial­ize too narrowly.

In the 20^th cen­tu­ry, humans tried to wipe coy­otes out. Poisoned, shot, trapped—millions were killed. Yet the more we hunt­ed them, the more coy­otes evolved. They began breed­ing faster, expand­ing into new regions, becom­ing more elu­sive, more noc­tur­nal, more clever. Even in death, they out­smart­ed us. It’s as though pres­sure forged them into some­thing fiercer. Where many species col­lapse under the pres­sure of cli­mate shifts and habi­tat loss, the coy­ote teach­es us that flex­i­bil­i­ty is not weak­ness, but a superpower.

In Native American tra­di­tions, the coy­ote is known as the trick­ster, the clever ani­mal that stole fire from the humans. To warm the world, you some­times have to steal a lit­tle light. Some may call that thiev­ery, but I call that resourceful.

The coy­ote raised his head again and shot me a haughty, indif­fer­ent look, more akin to the dis­mis­sive stare of my cat than my dog. Barkley, my 20 pound cock­apoo, comes from a line of dogs domes­ti­cat­ed some­where between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago. The “wolf” that sleeps in my bed bears no resem­blance to his ances­tors. He’s built for blan­kets and peanut but­ter treats and sweaters from T.J. Maxx, a prod­uct of thou­sands of years of evo­lu­tion­ary changes to become our most beloved companion. 

Coyotes nev­er accept­ed our invi­ta­tion. While dogs walked into our homes, coy­otes stayed on the edge of the fire­light, main­tain­ing their inde­pen­dence. Coyotes are not loved, not fed, not pro­tect­ed by humans. And yet, they flour­ish. They thrive in chaos, adjust with uncan­ny agili­ty, and car­ry the old world in their bones.