When I was a high school student in western Pennsylvania back in the ’60s, if somebody said they saw a coyote, nobody would have believed it — but that’s certainly not the case anymore.
Over the years, I have seen coyotes on several occasions, including dead ones along a highway, and now that we have access to those trail cameras, we’re spotting coyotes much more frequently.
Over the past month, I have seen several coyotes on our trail cameras in several different locations.
It appears coyotes may have entered Pennsylvania in the 1960s, likely from the Catskill Mountains in New York. From there, they spread further south and west in our state. In the 1970s most of our coyote sightings were occurring in the Pocono Mountains of the state, but they continued to expand their range, and by the 1990s they occupied the entire state. Today, the highest population numbers are across the northern portion of the state. In 1990, the total coyote population in Pennsylvania was believed to be between 15,000 and 20,000.
The coyote found here is often referred to as the eastern coyote, and it is much larger than its western counterpart. Our adult male coyotes will weigh 45 to 55 pounds, but one male that was caught weighed 62 pounds.
What’s interesting is that recent research shows the eastern coyote may have been interbreeding with gray wolves, and DNA analysis seems to support that hybridization has occurred. The eastern coyote is not only different in appearance but also in behavior.
What tweaked my interest in our coyotes was a recent conversation I was having with some friends, and one of the guys pulled out his phone and showed me something I had never seen before. It was video of eight coyotes at night on one of his trail cameras. Another video showed even more coyotes together in another nighttime setting. I personally have never seen more than two or three coyotes running together. From what I have been able to find, apparently coyotes do not typically run or hunt in large packs like wolves at night, but rather they usually travel or hunt alone in loose pairs. When coyotes do group together, it is usually a family unit made up of a breeding pair and their recent offspring.
I’m guessing that the video of those eight coyotes was probably a family group. Young coyotes begin to disperse from the family group when they are six months old, and that dispersal generally starts in October. I’m guessing that those large groups will soon disappear since it is believed that those juvenile coyotes will disperse up to 50 miles away.
I suspect that part of the reason for the increase in coyote numbers is that fewer people are involved in trapping them because of much lower pelt value, and there may well be fewer hunters pursuing them as well.
One thing is for sure: if you keep checking those trail cameras and keep your eyes open, there is a pretty good chance that you will be getting a look at a coyote or two.
