Origins of the Eastern Coyote

By Joe Kosack PGC Information Specialist

LARGE WILD CANID has been lurk- A. ing in the shadows of Penn• sylvania for the better part of this century. It's bigger than a fox, smaller than a wolf, and its population has mushroomed in the past 25 years. Today this animal inhabits all but one of our 67 counties. To many Pennsylvanians, the eastern coyote is no stranger. And each year more people are learning of its presence through personal encounters or news reports. At one time or another, the animal has re• ceived front-page coverage in probably ev• ery one of the state's newspapers and made the six o'clock news on every television station. The coyote is also the subject of discussions hy hunters, farmers and others After several years of marked increases, who feel the animal is costing them some• the coyote harvest increased only one thing. percent — up 79 animals to 6,240 — But for all the attention it gets, for all from 1993 to 1994, despite a 44 per• the commotion it causes, most of us know cent increase in the number of coyote little about eastern coyotes. It's one of the hunters and trappers over the same most mysterious and misunderstood mem• period. Coyote populations in Maine bers of our wildlife community because it and New York also peaked after rapid isn't as plentiful as other furbearers such as build-ups, according to Hayden. raccoons and red foxes, and is secretive and Speculation about coyotes is end• highly individualistic. less. There are debates on the coyote's Currently, Pennsylvania's coyote popu• diet, habitat preferences and social lation — an estimated 20,000 animals — habits, not to mention the size of its appears to have peaked, according to re• home range and the meaning of its tired Game Commission biologist Arnie vocalizations. But none of these dis• Hayden, who spent about eight years study• cussions seem to garner as much atten• ing the animal. His observation is corrobo• tion as the one fundamental question rated by agency Game-Take Survey data. that no one has or probably ever will

MARCH J 996 9 definitively answer: Where did our men measured five feet from tip to tip." coyotes come from? Other claims and reports of wolves be• There are several theories on how ing killed were made during this turn-of- coyotes came to inhabit Pennsylva• the-century period, but they're often viewed nia. Some are thought provoking and with skepticism because the sources were highly creditable. Others, such as the unreliable, the claims seem unrealistic, or Game Commission stocking coyotes the person identifying the animal was un• to reduce deer numbers, are ridicu• qualified. Wolves — or whatever roamed lous. All plausible theories fall into the state prior to colonization and into the one of three categories: coyotes were late 1800s — were either reduced to a always here; coyotes expanded their handful of animals or gone. range into Pennsylvania from the north Pennsylvania should have had wolves or west, or both; and coyotes kept as because it's located between areas that did pets escaped. have them: Canada, which has timber By the late 1890s, according to most wolves, and the southeastern United States, historical records, wolves — or what• which had red wolves (declared extinct in ever wolf-like canids inhabiting the wild in 1979). To date, however, not Pennsylvania's countryside — no one specimen of a wolf - skull, skeleton, longer existed. They'd been wiped out pelt - has been found in Pennsylvania. as a result of 200 years of bounties, an That lack of evidence brings forth the ever-popular attitude to shoot them question: Could what our forefathers called on sight, and widespread habitat dete• wolves actually have been coyotes? rioration when our virgin forests were Why wolf remains were not saved for timbered off. But during this period, posterity, or in the name of science, is an occasional "wolf" or two was pre• unclear. After all, heads were collected sented for bounty. from a majority of the wolves killed in In 1897, three wolf pelts were sub• Pennsylvania because that's what was most mitted in Tioga County for $30 in often submitted to obtain a bounty. If the bounties. The man making the claim animal wasn't cashed in, the pelt was often signed an affidavit at the local kept because it was the most useful part of magistrate's office stating he killed the animal and a lasting record of it. The them in the county, which he did. But rest of the wolf was left for nature to con• what the affidavit didn't say, and in• sume. vestigators later found out, was that he Pennsylvania's earliest wolf bounties — bought the "prairie wolves" for a $ 1.50 late 1600s — required persons to submit from a traveling circus headquartered the head for bounty; the local justice would in Canton. then cut off the ears and tongue. Later laws New York also has a few published •— late 1700s and early 1800s — directed accounts of large canids occasionally local magistrates to destroy the heads of being taken during this period. In the wolves submitted for bounty to avoid du• Annual Reports of the Forest, Fish and plicity, a widespread problem in the bounty Game Commissioners for the years business. With time, bounty laws changed 1904 through 1906, there is a report again, this time requiring wolf scalps to be about a man who shot a "gray timber submitted. They, too, were destroyed. New wolf" onNovember 2,1906, near Port York operated its bounty programs much Byron. "His dog scented, chased and the same way. brought the animal to bay, and he What's unfortunate about the way Penn• killed it with a shot from a .32-caliber sylvania and New York handled their revolver," the report stated. "The speci• bounty programs is that they destroyed

GAME NEWS most of — if not all — the evidence we servation, said in a recent telephone need to ascertain what large canid once interview that he believes eastern coy• roamed this two-state region. otes are what our forefathers called The first scientifically-validated case of wolves. He doesn't think coyotes ex• a wolf-like wild canid being taken in Penn• panded into or migrated to our region. sylvania occurred in 1907 when W. E. "Coyotes have always been here," he Clyde Todd, a prominent early-20th cen• said. "These are our wolves." tury ornithologist, was dispatched by It makes perfectly good sense for Carnegie Museum to investigate a "wolf" the coyote to always have been a part killed by a farmer at Flowing Spring, Blair of the Pennsylvania/New York region's County. He returned with a coyote, which animal community, according to some identified as a western coyote. Other TuUar. "That they're native is the sim• unsubstantiated reports of wolf kills fol• plest explanation for what we find. It lowed in subsequent years. requires no convoluted, improbable The first wildlife official to record a wolf hypothesis." report in the Game Commission's history Tullar believes coyotes remained was Joseph Kalbfus, the agency's first ex• in our region at the close of the 19th ecutive secretary. In his 1915 Annual Re• century — when the so-called wolves port he wrote about inspecting the pelt of disappeared. He suspects remnant a "wolf" killed in Clinton County. "The populations held on in remote areas of skin was undoubtedly the skin of a wolf; the New York's Adirondack Mountains hair is wooly and somewhat softer than the and possibly isolated areas of hair of a timber wolf of the West, otherwise Pennsylvania's northern tier, places it greatly resembles the timber wolf," Kalbfus that were spared from the widespread noted. After being prepared hy the state deforestation occurring at the time. taxidermist, the mount was to be given to As forest habitat improved and prey the State Museum in Harrisburg. For what• species increased, so did the number of ever reason — deterioration, storage prob• coyotes, according to Tullar. lems, wasn't forwarded — the museum Arnie Hayden said he believes the doesn't have the pelt. coyote is native to the northeastern Ben TuUar Jr., who was a furbearer bi• United States, but that it was eradi• ologist for 35 years with the New York cated in the 1800s and then somehow State Department of Environmental Con• reclaimed its former range. He (Joubts the animal underwent significant ge• netic changes or made a long migra• tory haul from the midwestem United States in recent times. "Coyotes have been here much longer than we think," Hayden said. "We just didn't pay much attention to them." Based on photographic evidence and news reports about coyotes, which began appearing steadily in the late 1930s and early '40s, Hayden suspects

TWENTY-TWO POUND juvenile coyote trapped In Benzinger Township, Elk County in 1965. It is thought coyotes were firmly established in the commonwealth by the 1960s.

MARCH 1996 H coyotes were firmly established in reached a crisis in the opinion of Conserva• Pennsylvania by the 1960s, predomi• tion Commissioner Lithgow and the New nantly in the northeastern counties, Year will see the inauguration of a war on but also in pockets throughout the wolves . . . "Another article (and news• state. Then, for some inexplicable rea• paper accounts) provided details on the son — Hayden suspects a beneficial capture of several members of an escaped habitat change — the population in pack of coyotes responsible for killing more the 1970s increased than 100 sheep in and dramatically ex• Washington County. panded its range, not No specimen of a Two were never just in Pennsylvania caught. That same but throughout the wolf— skull, year, according to re• eastern United skeleton, pelt — has search performed by States. Coyotes were Helen McCinnis, moving into new ar• ever been found in who studied Pennsyl• eas of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania. Could vania coyotes exten• and states such as sively in the 1970s, "a Delaware, Rhode Is• coyotes he what our pair of coyotes es• land and Maryland, caped from a tourist places where there forefathers called camp" in Bradford had been no record of wolves? County, near large wild canids for a Camptown. long, long time. "The only thing that stands in the way of that theory is where did the wolf genes Hayden and Tullar both believe that coyotes possess come from," Hayden the coyotes sparking this invasion of questioned. the Mid-Atlantic came from some• where in the Northeast, probably the Robert Wayne of the University of Cali• Adirondacks. Tullar is fairly confident fornia and Niles Lehman of The Scripps coyotes always inhabited those moun• Research Institute in California have shown tains. Hayden isn't, hut he believes the through DNA analysis that eastern coy• mountains may have served as an area otes and eastern gray wolves have inter• where coyotes gained a foothold in the bred and that eastern coyotes have wolf region and then expanded into new genes. But when they interbred is still un• areas. Whether those coyotes were al• clear, although many researchers believe it ways there, or came from somewhere occurred around the turn-of-the-century else such as Canada or Maine, Hayden or early 1900s. isn't sure. Wayne/Lehman have also documented There is also the possibility that our wolf genes in coyotes in the southcentral coyotes are offspring of pets or captive United States. When this happened and animals that escaped or were released what it means is unclear. But this by their owners. Cases of coyotes or southcentral part of the country has his• "wolves" escaping their owners have torically been western coyote range. been documented since the 1930s. • Wayne/Lehman's work also showed east• In 1934, Game Newi offered infor• ern coyotes rarely possessed morphological mation that supported both Jheories characteristics common to domestic dogs, of origin. In one article the rtilagazine which indicates, as other studies do, that reported, "The situation created by coyotes would have difficulty breeding with the appearance of wolves in the dogs in the wild. The occurrence of Adirondack section of New York has "coydogs" apparently was not as common

GAME NEWS here as early Pennsylvania coyote research• bring home a cute coyote puppy. When ers thought. What was here all along ap• it grows up it is no longer cute. In fact, pears to have been mostly coyotes. A point it may become mean. They turn it reinforced by McGinnis's research. loose, or it escapes and becomes feral. Dr. Robert Chambers, a retired Syra• Those are the ones hunters kill." cuse University professor who has studied Doutt typically made his canid iden• coyotes since 1969, believes eastern coy• tifications through skull analysis. He otes got here through range expansion and would compare an unknown canid that they are the product of wolf-coyote skull to a series of coyote and dog interbreeding. And, he pointed out that skulls, then develop a conclusion. In a most canid biologists support that belief. 1966 analysis, he reported to the Chambers said he doesn't know when agency, "Although very definitely coy• coyotes began mating with wolves. "Coy• ote-like, [this skull] has certain char• otes may have been here before wolves acteristics which are dog-like. 1 would were extirpated," he suggested. More than say this animal has some dog in it." likely, though, the coyotes came later, and Considering these words from a not until after they had bred with wolves in leading wildlife expert, you can't help Canada. but wonder whether anyone could Chambers said that from the 1880s to positively identify an eastern coyote 1920s there was no constant presence of from a western coyote, or small wolf large canids in New York, which suggests from a coyote at the turn-of-the-cen• that if there were native coyotes, they had tury, or anytime prior to the 1960s. been eliminated. "Why should we believe The migration/range expansion that we were able to eliminate coyotes in theory has coyotes pushing into Penn• the East?" queried Chambers, who noted sylvania sometime during the 1930s. that after tremendous effort and expense The big difference between this theory man hasn't been able to do the same thing and the one concerning native coy• in the West. otes rests mostly with where the first Chambers is convinced that 19th cen• animals originated. One suggests they tury taxonomists would have been able to were always here, the other theory, differentiate wolves from coyotes. They that they came from Canada. These had both been distinctly identified by zo• theories are further complicated by ologists by the early 1830s. Yet one can't the possibility of escaped wolves or help but wonder how these wildlife experts coyotes either contributing to the re• might have made their identifications: vi• surgence of large canids in this region sual inspection, measurements, bone struc• or influencing the new canid's genetic ture analysis? composition. In 1948, well after the coyote invasion One thing seems certain about coy• began in the Northeast, J. Kenneth Doutt, otes: they have adapted to our state curator of Carnegie Museum's Department and appear to be here for the duration. of Mammology, and a man who was asked "We do not control the coyote, the to identify many coyotes for the Came species controls its own destiny," Commission, said that "most of the coyotes Hayden said. "We stand in its way at turning up in Pennsylvania are pets that times, but it keeps coming. We must are released. People visiting in the West learn to live with this species." •

MARCH 1996