Update starting May 15, 2008. Field update: spring and summer 2008. Update May 18: 2 new captures; possible failed collar (how frustrating). Update May 21: Eb found! Update May 26: Jaws recaptured yet again. Update June 1: Marstons Mills Airport pack probably kills but definitely eats an entire deer in 24 hours! Update June 19: large 43.1 lb adult male coyote "Mill" radio-collared. June 19: additional notes made in text including Eb information and pup updates. Update June 25: Cicadas anyone? Coy-Wolves say yes! Update June 27: New coyote capture "Snup" with pictures added. Update July 3: repeat capture of Mill. Aug. 12: new coyote capture "Cost" - the last update on this link (new update coming soon on a separate link).
I have come up with a new idea. Formerly I provided regular updates as you can tell by simply scanning down the field updates page. However, it is a lot of work to make a new link to a webpage, compared to simply updating an existing page. Because I currently have multiple traps armed to try and capture more animals, and am still both radio-tracking existing coyotes and teaching (1 more month before summer vacation) at Barnstable High School, I literally don’t have enough time to sleep. This new format will simply allow me to add updates as they happen. I hope you enjoy this detailed page (I won’t create a new one until late summer 2008).
Trapping
It is hard to explain how exhausting teaching full-time and checking armed/set traps at dawn and dusk (we check all traps twice a day, minimum, when armed) is. Even with student help at some sites, I am inevitably up by 5:15 AM every day. We have had lots of activity, and crows (which are supposed to be very difficult to capture) will not stay out of my trap sites. They are supposed to be a difficult species to capture but nobody told them that as I have captured dozens in the past couple of months, as well as turkey vultures, raccoons, opossums, and many other creatures.
However, I have also captured coyotes, and, bizarrely, many recaptures. Here is a list of captures since our last captures of Jaws and Hood (up north of Boston) in the mid-February update:
1. “Jaws” (# 0801) recaptured on 25 April. He was 33 lb this time and appeared healthy. We sedated him to examine his mouth (as his collar is new, we didn’t need to change that) and gave him 6 more stitches from a section of mouth that didn’t heal from his surgery in mid-February.
2. “Cake” (# 0204) recaptured and re-collared on 3 May. She was long (5 feet) from nose to tail-tip and weighed 39.5 lb. Her old collar was 2 years old and worked well. I changed it to give this 7-8 year old coyote’s collar fresh batteries. This is her 3rd capture. She was lactating as I knew based on radio-telemetry data.
3. “Coak” (# 0804) was recaptured on 8 May. She was captured in Hyannisport despite having her pups all the way on the other side of town by exit 6. We mildly sedated her (still small, 28.2 lb) and slightly tightened her collar before driving her to her den (since I knew where it was and didn’t want her running 2-3 miles through Hyannis during the day to get back to her pups) and letting her go near it. I imagine she wondered how the heck I knew where her pups were! She was lactating as well.
4. “Cake” (# 0204) yet again, on 9 May. We captured her about 1.5-2 miles from her capture 6 days before. This trap was closer to her den site. Obviously I did not need to give her a new collar this time around.
5. “Eb” (# 0812) was captured on 10 May. She is a good-sized 36.3 lb young female coyote captured at the north part of Osterville. She is likely 1, maybe 2, years old. She had no evidence of having had pups (no signs of lactation). May 18: Possible collar failure; see bottom. Update May 21: Eb found!
I do not have a solid explanation for this amazing recapture rate except for my long-standing theories that some coyotes live to an old age and every year or so they enter the traps for one reason or another (mainly, there being lots of “free” food). Also, I think that some coyotes simply forget about the process because they were sedated and wake up and are released unharmed. Telazol, the sedative that we use, can cause temporary memory loss which might explain this recapture rate. Finally, maybe some are predispositioned to entering traps for one reason or another and since they are released after each capture they are unaffected by the traps in the long-run. I do know that it is rare to capture the mate of a coyote that is repeatedly captured (either male or female) and I think that those coyotes see their companions captured and are then unwilling to enter the trap after that experience.
May 18: 2 new coyote captures this weekend. Note (and I know this is a disappointment to some of you): I will continue to not give locations of captures since the town and the state refuse to stop the needless legal hunting season on eastern coyotes, at least in the town where I do research (Barnstable). Some people have used this information to try and kill the very same animals that we are studying. How pathetic.
6. "Lyn" (# 0814), a 31.9 lb female; she was young and most likely non-lactating (but did have some belly fur missing - pseudopregnancy? Subsequent radio-tracking will verify her social status.
7. "Fac" (# 0816), a 33.5 lb middle-aged female coyote that is lactating. A very important capture in a section of Barnstable where I haven't deployed a collar on a coyote in about 2 years. She had about 50 ticks on her; we gave her frontline to give her a post-release boost (I bet she feels like a million bucks tomorrow morning with no ticks on her)!
8. Update May 26: Jaws recaptured yet again. I released him unharmed and he traveled about 1.5 miles back to his mate's probable den. This is the 3rd capture of him in 2008; the only male captured so far this year (excluding Hood up in Boston). He has been very submissive in the traps when captured and is cautious to leave until I walk away and sit down (to appear less threatening). This is his first capture without being sedated so it will be interesting to see if he enters a trap again in the near future.
9.June 19: Mill radio-collared and released in Osterville. He is a large, impressive, 43.1 lb adult male. He was captured very close to where Eb (who I regularly see alone) spends a lot of her time. I suspect that Eb uses areas between Mill, Jaws, and Cake's respective pack territories. Tracking Mill (and Eb and the others) will help me verify that. Young, lone animals like Eb are fascinating but very difficult to monitor because they aren't bound to a specific territory like adult breeders are. The fact that Eb (who I find 90% of the time) is using a fairly small area (when I find her) is interesting.
Update June 27: Mill, a large breeding male, uses all of Osterville, and unfortunately that includes the private Oyster Harbors. The security staff won't give me access to the island and that is where he has spent most of his time thus far. It is 2.5-3 miles from where I captured him. I think that his pups are on there based on his behavior (although it took him 2 days to go there after I released him). That really stinks as I will lose lots of valuable data while he is on that private island.
10. June 27: New coyote capture "Snup" with picture added. This cute little guy was captured this morning and given a radio-implant. He is a 11.1 lb pup and was thus too small to be collared. One of his parents was standing next to the trap as I approached (with my 3.5 month son in my arms). Of course, the average person would have been hysterical as a coyote stared them down. However, I actually felt terrible for her/him as it was simply being a good parent and trying to free one of its offspring... And naturally, the coyote ran off as I approached the trap and saw the pup sitting inside it.
By dusk tonight, I released Snup and he went about 200-300 meters from his release site and back to what seemed like a potential rendezvous site (lots of pup tracks) in an area that surprised me as a potential rendezvous location (open and not much water around). Once again, I thank Larry Venezia and his clinic at the Hyannis Animal Hospital for conducting this procedure. Snup was in good condition and was given frontline for ticks and fleas and a couple of antibiotics to couteract potential effects of his minor surgery. I gave him a large tuperware cup of water as he woke up in the trap we captured him in. I didn't think that he touched it (about 1 quarter of water; a lot for an 11-lb animal) until I took it out of his cage before going to release him. There I found it virtually empty - I am amazed that he could drink that much in such a short period of time (recovery was 6-8 hours after the surgery). He must have been thirsty. Snup was also given a right ear tag to identify him since the abdomen scar (where the radio-implant was put) heals so cleanly and quickly and when fur grows over it (1-2 months), it is virtually impossible to identify him as a research subject, especially when he potentially leaves his natal area (note: that has happened to 2 research subjects [Cup and Cix] as I lost track of them and never found out what happened to either of them). Even if found dead, folks probably had no idea that they had a radio-implant inside of them.
It amazes me that my state (and just about all others) allow these magnificient animals to be slaughtered in unlimited numbers starting in October (in MA), and largely for recreational purposes. How pathetic.
11. July 3: repeat capture of Mill in Osterville. He was recaptured on 1 July and released at the same trap unhandled. I am convinced that the sedative (and maybe the frontline which gets rid of their ectoparasites and must make them feel so much better) causes them to forget the experience. I have recaptured many animals over the years, some just days or weeks after their first (or 2nd) capture and some a year or two afterwards. However, I rarely capture the mate of these animals making me think that they see and understand what happened to their companion while their captured comrade has amnesia over the event (that is a good reason to use a sedative because it must really calm them down if they forget and re-enter a trap so soon after first getting captured).
The night before his second capture I saw him and his probable mate physically travel over the Osterville Bridge leaving Oyster Harbors. It was amazing to watch. At 9:43 pm on 30 June I was standing on the Osterville bridge and he and his mate came onto the street and looked right at me. They were clearly hoping to cross the road/bridge but I was in the way by standing there. I ended up waiting in my car about 100 meters west of the bridge and at 11:06 pm he came back out and the two of them at separate times (1-2 min apart) approached the bridge from under the guard rail. They walked to where they could see the other side of the road then scooted across including right over the grated part of the bridge that opens for passing boats. Mill clearly went from there to the trap about 2 miles away where I found him barking and howling at 5:20 am the next morning. I released him then and by the next morning he was back on Oyster Harbors. What a neat animal!
12. August 12, 2008. Capture of "Cost" (#0818) in Osterville. A 32.2 lb adult female. A healthy and beautiful animal. Very slender. I think this might be Mill's mate (see August 18 update; they probably aren't mates) which is amazing to have them collared at the same time, with both captured via box trap. Also, I will elaborate on this on my next fuller field update but Eb and Mill are now traveling together and I suspect that she is the daughter of Mill. It will be amazing if Cost also travels with them. Unfortunately when they go to Oyster Harbors, I have no way of monitoring them since I can't figure out how to get access to the private island. Very frustrating especially since there is more than 1 collared animal together. I have now seen either Mill or Eb cross over the Bridge St bridge 4 times. It is amazing to see how adaptable and smart they are to use the bridge to get from the Oyster Harbor's island to the mainland. Good luck Cost!
Radio-Telemetry Data/Wild Coyotes
As many of you are aware, the majority of data that I collect comes from radio-telemetry. This underscores the importance of collaring and repeatedly radio-tracking study subjects, especially elusive ones like eastern coyotes. There are some exciting results from the field.
First, and frustratingly, I still haven’t located “Raider” and if she is still in her traditional greater-Hyannis range, she won’t enter a box-trap for re-collaring. It is so frustrating to lose a collared animal because of probable collar malfunction, especially with how difficult it is to successfully trap a coyote, let alone re-re-capture a coyote (this would be Raider’s 3rd capture if I am lucky enough to capture her again. The only other viable option is that her collar is working and she has left the area for some reason. I don’t think this has happened nor do I think that she was killed and somebody took her and her collar away because that would’ve likely been reported to me.
Sill, a 9 year old male in Marstons Mills, has an old 4-year old collar that fortunately still works, but is slowly dying. He has strangely localized at the edge of his range (near Mup’s) but probably is with a denning female. I usually don’t see his pups until June when they move to cranberry bog rendezvous sites full of their favorite, rodents.
Cake, as mentioned in the capture section, does have pups (no solid count of numbers as of yet) and has been localized since late-March. Excitingly, Eb, the newly collared coyote had been using northern Osterville, which is the edge of Cake’s range, but this morning I found her literally across the street from Cake. I think that she might be on of Cake’s yearling daughters and I hope that she remains with Cake’s group to act as a helper this summer. The other most likely option is that she disperses and leaves the study area which, stinks, because then I won’t be able to track her as she travels far beyond my range of radio-detection (& especially with flippin’ gas around $4.00 a gallon).
Coak does have pups and at the edge of Raider’s range. I am convinced, but have no evidence to prove, that she paired with one of Raider’s offspring. It is the only logical way, unless she is Raider’s offspring (unlikely because she never associated with Raider when both collars worked). A foreign coyote would be chased by Raider’s group unless there is a reason not to (i.e., Coak is with one of Raider’s). This summer will be interesting to monitor her pups which are dangerously close to route 132 which is under construction and terribly designed for wildlife (lots of barriers and soon to be 4 lanes). Coak had her pups late, toward the end of April, which is late for around her (most give birth in early April).
Jaws seems to be doing well and the recent recapture hopefully has made his mouth even more repaired. He is clearly localized and his probable mate most likely has pups. What a success story for him to have survived a broken jaw and now be fairly healthy after we rehabbed him!
Finally, and the biggest news of this year, is that Mup does have pups. Since I have already observed a lactating female by the Marstons Mills Airport (before Mup localized), that means that there are 2 females in this pack that produced pups this year. Remember, Mup’s father Mystic was shot and killed last December (2006) by a hunter. Since then, I have observed a new male in the area and that male clearly bred Mup and either Mup’s sister or mother. This just proves that the more we meddle in the lives of eastern coyotes, the more they respond by increasing their numbers. This will be an interesting summer, especially if I am able to observe all of the pups (and adults) together.
May 18: I can't find Eb. We had heavy rain on Friday night (May 16) and the next morning I searched everywhere and could not find her despite easily finding her the entire week before. Unless she moved about 10 miles to the west and into Mashpee or Falmouth, she was nowhere near her previous 7 days of locations. I am putting my money on her collar having malfunctioned (failed) and it was likely related to the heavy rains. It is hard to explain how frustrating it is to spend $300 on a top of the notch collar and to have it fail on you especially considering we are capturing coyotes in box traps, a technique that I was told we wouldn't be able to capture any coyotes with (which has obviously been proven wrong). So, I get to spend this week paying almost $4 a gallon on gas to drive around looking for a coyote that probably has a failed collar (meaning, that I won't pick up a signal because the collar is not transmitting) that is probably still within my study area. Frustrating indeed.
I should note here that seeing uncollared coyotes is like finding a needle in a haystack. I theoretically could verify that Eb or Raider are around (with a failed collar) by physically seeing them - then I could turn to their frequency of their collar and verify that it was dead. However, it is difficult for me to justify spending all of that time looking for a coyote with a failed collar when I have over half a dozen coyotes with working transmitters.
Update May 21: Eb found! Well I have to eat my words, because just when I was virtually certain that Eb's collar malfunctioned, I found her. For the past 2 days I have located her in Osterville and she is clearly moving around (I saw her briefly as she crossed a road). There is only 1 possible place she could have been unless she went 10 or so miles west of my study area and into Falmouth (then of course back). Next time I can't find her I will try that one possible location where I might have not found her in the town of Barnstable and surrounding area. These "nagging uncertainties" make the research very exciting yet frustrating at the same time. Hopefully she will stay in range from now on!
Update May 26: Eb does appear to be a transient coyote and I have located her within the home ranges of 3 other coyote groups already. Her collar does indeed work, although it seems to be weak at times.
June 19: Eb is still in the same general area which is fascinating. It is almost like she is spending time between 3 packs hoping that a territorial opening happens. She is a formidible 36 lb female so maybe she knows it is just a matter of time. There are some times I don't find her and I am not sure if she is out of range or if her collar is acting up. She has a collar with a long antenna (the telemetry company should have made it shorter) is so long that sometimes (I hypothesis) the end of the antenna touches the base, which might cancel it out, thus greatly reducing its range. When she is active (I see her regularly around dawn and dusk) it works fine because the antenna hangs down and does not bend.
Update June 1: Marstons Mills Airport pack probably kills but definitely eats an entire deer in 24 hours! On Friday morning (May 30) I observed, for the first time on Cape Cod, a coyote chase a deer (actually 3 of them). It was in the Marstons Mills Airport. Mup had crossed route 149 east to west, apparently leaving her pups for the day. There happened to be 2 deer (looked like a doe and last year's fawn, now a yearling). They were grazing and Mup bedded down on a grass runway in the middle of the airport. Minutes later a 3rd deer, a buck, came out of the woods at the same time that another coyote did (who was on the opposite side of the deer as Mup was). Not much happened as the uncollared coyote soon wondered off into the woods without joining up with Mup. A couple minutes later, though, Mup stood up and for some reason chased the 3 deer full speed towards where the glider planes park. When she got close to them, the doe turned around and started chasing Mup. The doe was much taller than Mup. They played cat and mouse for 1-2 minutes then Mup decided to leave them alone and walk off on her own. She bedded at the edge of the airport (but in view as I was using my spotting scope to see her over 1/4 mile away) for about 5 minutes then got back up and moused in the tall grass, looking no doubt for meadow voles which I have seen her catch before (but not this day).
The very next morning, an outdoorsman-friend-of mine called to tell me that he found a freshly killed and eaten young buck about 1/2 mile from the airport. He said that the second time that he walked by the carcass (50 feet from a fire road/hiking trail) a tall adult coyote (probable male) was standing on it and had already eaten most of the back end of the deer. I gave a talk off-Cape yesterday and was subsequently late getting to the dead deer but found the location, based on my friend's directions, at about 4:30 PM. Amazingly over half of the deer was eaten already. So much so that I could easily see the entire leg bones and decided to saw one open to look at the bone marrow content. It was paste-like looking which, I believe, indicates that it was a healthy deer, and not in danger of starving which certainly makes sense for this time of the year with an abundance of available vegetation (its rumen, which stunk big-time, was full of green, partially digested grass).
This morning I jogged back to the site, after locating Mup about a half mile away, and the deer was literally gone. There were a couple tufts of fur and a small amount of the intestine and rumen there, but every bone was gone. My guess is that the 4 (likely) adult members devoured the entire animal overnight. They likely carried the bones back to the den site (over 1 mile away) or they chewed and ate them (they can do that). It is hard to believe that 4 roughly 35 lb animals can eat an entire deer which likely weighed 100 lbs the day before, when alive, but they clearly did as their was no sign of the animal this morning.
Although I will never know the true condition of this animal (i.e., did it have an injured leg?), this is the exact time of the year when female deer drive away their offspring from last year to give birth to new fawns. It is entirely probable (and my best guess) that this was a yearling male and was alone for the first time. Maybe his inexperience caught up with the hunger and persistence of coyotes needing to feed their offspring. Nature is fascinating and I have always said that you can see Wild America in your backyard or your hometown and that you don't need to travel to a national park to see nature in action. Of course, there will be some deer hunters annoyed by this post since they claim that coyotes are killing all of "my deer," but everyone knows that state fish and wildlife departments have super liberal deer hunting seasons (to my disappointment since I love watching deer too) in order to reduce their numbers. I have always suspected that eastern coyotes (or should I say coy-wolves because of their hybrid status) can be effective predators of deer. I believe that state fish and game agencies should account for coyotes in their population models of reducing over abundant deer numbers. They absolutely should not increase hunting of coy-wolves because coyotes give a minority of disgruntled hunters some competition. Rather, they make the gene pool of deer and other prey healthy by taking what they can. Unfortunately, state fish and game deptartments, who sadly get their revenue solely from hunters, often allow deer hunters to shoot coyotes to appease their misguided belief that coyotes are "killing all the deer." Rather, wildlife managers should decrease the number of antlerless (i.e., doe) deer that can be shot. That would be a commonsense decision to increase deer numbers while not affecting a highly effective, family-oriented, and social predator, the coy-wolf. Howl on Mup et al., as you will be fed well this week (unfortunatley none of her group has entered a nearby box trap this spring preventing me from putting another collar on this pack).
June 19: Pup counts are slow coming for me. It is very difficult to track all of these coy-wolves (eastern coyotes) on my own. I suspect that most monitored groups have pups but I have only seen a few up to now. This will be a separate update in the near future.
Update June 25: Cicadas anyone? Coy-Wolves say yes! As summer is finally here and school is out I get to focus on 2 important things: 1) taking care of my 3.5 month old son Nathan, and 2) documenting eastern coy-wolf (coyote) ecology. Monitoring efforts are already paying off as I am seeing coyotes hiting the 17 year periodic cicadas big time. The other night I watched Jaws eating 6-7 cicadas (at 1 am) in someone's front yard by the Marstons Mills Dump. Then I saw 2 of his pups near the dump and they looked like grazing deer except they weren't eating grass. They were walking along the edge of a powerline corridor and were sniffing for and chomping on cicadas. I have also found 2 coyote scats that were completely full of those insects. It almost looked like bear scats that I have seen in other parts of the country. Finally, I suspect that coyote Cake moved her pups (2 documented so far) to an area where cicadas are very abundant (as told to me from a landscaper). There is no evidence of this type of food source in the literature so I will keep doing what a good scientist does and keep documenting what my study subjects do. Of course, eating these insects does a great service to the environment as they eat lots of vegetation. Expect another "micro-"update soon as I expect to capture yet another coy-wolf in a trap within the week! Howl on!
Other News
In early May I spent a few hours in Hingham and radio-located then saw Walnut a couple of times. I didn’t see him with another coyote but he was very intently traveling back to a wooded area where I guessed that his mate (whom I observed in February) might have pups. Remember that Walnut is one of Cake’s offspring (son) and is currently 50 miles from Cape Cod. What made him leave the Cape (I guess by swimming the canal) then what made him settle in north Hingham (within view of downtown Boston) is anyone’s guess and Walnut’s secret!
Hood is still hanging out around Mount Hood Golf Course in Melrose and appears localized, likely at a den. Whether he is a helper coyote to his father, or he is the breeding male of the group, is currently undetermined.
Well that is about it. Besides all of the above, and a full time teaching job at Barnstable High School, I have nothing to do and am bored. Just kidding! Actually, this research and academic schedule makes one about as exhausted as one can possibly be, but it is the only way to document all that I have while still earning a decent salary.
Stay tuned for updates in red on this page, which will be coming periodically as spring turns into summer.
