That's why they run like hell in the rural areas when they see a vehicle pull to a stop. Around here they're a lot different acting and not much livestock other than a few chickens, goats and those pot belly pigs like the one my oldest had named Roscoe. I have found what's left of a couple missing neighborhood kitty cats out in the field. I went along varmint hunting as a spotter a few times in northern Nevada. I spotted a coyote walking up a hill for one my customers and he got it with his 7mm Remington. That sure did a number on that rascal.I was working for a cow outfit on the Carson River. Out on the desert there was a coyote keeping a cow stirred up, so I went over to check things out, and see if I could get a shot at it. When I got close enough, two coyotes ran off. One had been keeping the cow busy, the other was eating the calf. The calf was new born, still alive, the coyote had been eating the milk out of the calf's stomach.
I just watched a Nat Geo show on African predators and they filmed a pack of Jackals bring down some kind of Antelope. They look almost like a Coyote. I do know Coyote will work in a team. I've read when the go for larger game like a deer they take turns at running it down to exhaust the deer out. These Jackals did the same thing. I've observed the Coyote hunting prairie dogs in the field and they just scan the area as all the prairie dogs run for their holes. They'll spot one that looks like it's just a little farther from it's hole and that's the one they bolt after. Most the time the prairie dog get's in the hole with a fraction of a second to spare. I believe the coyote will leave the prairie town for a while to let the prairie dogs become more relaxed and comfortable thinking all's well in prairie dog town and then the coyote will come back for another run on those quick little guys. The coyote do succeed at getting them, as I've seen the coyote strutting along with a prairie dog dead and swinging in it's jaws from time to time.Nice picture! They are a really hard one to get pics of very close. When I moved back to Kentucky in the early 90's, one of the biggest differences I saw was the wildlife there in my absence. It was nothing to hear bobcats call on the ridges and near the woods at night when I was a boy. They were rarely heard when I returned. I never saw a wild turkey as a boy, but they were everywhere when I went back. Elk, black bear and others that had disappeared were being brought back. Coyotes roamed in packs and at night you could hear their yips and barks near the cattle farms. I know of one instance where a fully grown cow was killed by a pack as they got her down somehow, chewed her udder and rear end out and she bled to death. You could see where her legs kicked the dirt as her life bled out. My sister lived across the way and remembered being woke up that night by the calls of the pack. Her oldest daughter was scared to get out of her car when she was still living at home because of them circling their yard in her car lights when she'd come home late. If you were vigilant during calving season, you would catch glimpses of them now and again, but usually they saw you long before you saw them and they would slink away.
That's an epic looking coyote. He could maybe be a movie star. There was a native Indian breed once called a Hare Dog that was thought to be bred from a coyote. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Indian_DogJust a Country Dog:
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