Defenders Magazine
Get Defenders Headlines
Get the latest wildlife conservation news and information... right when we post it online.
Defenders Magazine
Wildlife: Wile E Wolf
When in wolf territory, it turns out coyotes are the ones with something to howl about.
Researchers tracking radio-collared coyotes within Grand Teton National Park in the Yellowstone ecosystem found that coyote numbers were 33 percent lower in areas where wolves were abundant. "The study tests the previously unproven hypothesis that wolves limit the range and numbers of coyotes in places where the two species compete with one another," says Kim Murray Berger, lead author of the new Wildlife Conservation Society study.
With more wolves present, coyotes are no longer the top "dog," and wolves keep them on their toes, providing them with competition for territory and food and sometimes even dueling with them to death. The result is lower coyote reproduction rates.
But this shouldn't bolster the wolf's mistaken reputation for being big and bad. The canid cousins are just finally settling back into their natural pattern of coexistence—one that they shared for thousands of years until humans shot, trapped and poisoned the wolf out of the ecosystem early last century.
