Keeping your pets and pet food inside at night helps reduce the likelihood that a family pet will become prey. In suburban areas, coyotes have been known to kill house cats. Preventive measures such as proper disposal of livestock carcasses, use of guard animals, keeping expectant animals and newborns in confinement or using electric fences can deter coyotes. It is a good idea to check with the state wildlife agency before undertaking any control methods. Coyotes may be taken by trapping or shooting, but it is illegal to use poison as a control method. In New Hampshire, there is no closed hunting season on coyotes and there is a five-month trapping season. However, when farms are situated in a coyote territory with no depredation, the resident coyote may actually be an asset to the farm by removing rodents and preventing problem coyotes from moving into the area. If this occurs, removal of the offending coyote is often recommended. However, once a coyote learns that young livestock are easy prey, depredation can become a problem. The great majority of coyotes don't prey upon livestock. Most coyote management attempts have been designed to reduce their population numbers, however, due to their fecundity, behavior and adaptability, those attempts have failed. Communication with a canid researcher indicates that dog genetics entered the coyote population approximately 13,000 years ago through human introduction of European dog species to North America.Ĭoyotes are elusive, adaptive, intelligent animals that manage to hold their own when living in close contact with humans.
Roland Kays of the New York State Museum, along with fifteen other national and international researchers, found sampled genetic material of Eastern coyote was primarily of coyote origin (82 percent), with a minor contribution from dogs (9 percent) and wolves (9 percent). However, recent DNA sampling of northeastern coyote tissue by Dr. Since male domestic dogs that manage to pair with a female coyote do not remain with the female to assist in parental care, the young rarely survive. Historic research documented domestic dog/coyote hybrids, referred to as coydogs, birthing during winter months. Coyotes are capable of many distinct vocalizations - the yipping of youngsters, barks to indicate a threat, long howls used to bring pack members together, and group yip-howls issued when pack members reunite. Coyotes mark and defend their territories against other unrelated coyotes and sometimes against other canid species. Territories range in size from 5-25 square miles and are usually shared by a mated pair and occasionally their offspring. Within a year some pups will disperse long distances to find their own territories, while other offspring may remain with their parents and form a small pack. Four to eight pups are born in early May. Both parents care for their young, occasionally with the assistance of older offspring. Coyotes are quite vocal during their January to March breeding season. The Eastern coyote is a social animal that generally selects a lifelong mate. Coyotes utilize forested habitats, shrubby open fields, marshy areas and river valleys.
Coyotes are known to feed on mice, squirrels, woodchucks, snowshoe hare, fawns, house cats, carrion, amphibians, garbage, insects and fruit.
Today, coyotes are common in every county throughout the state.Ĭoyotes are generalists, eating whatever food is seasonally abundant. Between 19 coyotes spread across NH from Colebrook to Seabrook. The first verified account of a coyote in New Hampshire was in Grafton County in 1944. Since the mid-1900s coyotes have moved from the Midwestern states, through Canada and into the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states. Unlike the wolf or domestic dog, coyotes run with their tail pointing down.Īlthough the historical evidence supporting occurrence of coyotes in New England is inconclusive, no coyotes were present in the late 1800s. Though coyotes are often mistaken for a domestic dog hybrid, recent genetic research has attributed the eastern coyote's larger size and unique behavioral characteristics to interbreeding with Eastern Canadian wolves (C. The average life span of a wild coyote is four years. Eastern coyotes have long legs, thick fur, a pointy snout, a drooping bushy black-tipped tail and range in color from a silvery gray to a grizzled, brownish red. Eastern coyotes typically weigh 30-50 pounds and are 48-60 inches long, approximately twice the size of their close relative, the western coyote.