Coyote

Coyote

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

Coyotes occasionally lose their wariness of humans and frequent roadsides or developed areas, becoming conditioned to human food by receiving handouts or picking up food scraps. They can quickly learn bad habits like roadside begging behavior. This leads to potential danger for humans and coyotes. Beginning in 1988, park staff increased monitoring of coyotes along park roadsides and experimented with scaring unwary coyotes from visitor use areas with cracker shell rounds, bear repellent spray, or other negative stimuli. Those animals that continue to pose a threat to themselves or to humans may be translocated to other areas of the park, or even removed from the park ecosystem. Signs, interpretive brochures, and park staff continue to remind visitors that coyotes and other park wildlife are wild and potentially dangerous. They should never be fed or approached too closely, for the protection of humans and the animals.

Coyote belongs to the following groups: