What does coyote pack howling, yiping mean?

Doubleclutch

New member
I have recently moved back "home", the upper Gulf coast, farm country and the coyotes are now here in force. I can hear 3 different packs most nights from the porch. They are seldom seen and do not get killed on roads much. Little traffic at night out here. Three nights there was several within 200 yards of our house in the last few days. They were howling, yipping, etc for probably a full minute. What does this mean? Getting together, fresh kill or what. They are not always in the same place but in the general area. This does not take place at any given or set time. We have barn/yard cats and I am trying to figure out the best way to deal with them. Some of the neighbors have lost small dogs and a lot of cats to them already. Any help is appreciated.
 
I don't challenge an assembly call ever. Many times an alpha will howl and assemble its 'pack'. These howls will many times be followed by pack yips and howls. I typically emit a long drawn out higher pitch nonthreatening howl. Maybe a few pupppy whines. If after a time, I get a dominant coyote challenge barking me I will return the bark.

A few weeks ago I had a nice 10 minute long barking match with a younger coyote (yearling) while the alpha watched from 300 yards back. Lucky for the closer 1, it it stayed hidden in a small wash choked with Mesquite trees and creosote bushes.

I have found that many times coyote vocalizations will bring in a dog much more cautiously than a rabbit distress type call. I would purchase a tally ho or tweety, sit in some cover or your back to a tree and start blowing at dawn. 30 second bursts, 2 minutes of silence, repeat.

The coyotes are destined to come looking for an easy meal. After you have taken a few of these in this manner, you'll probably have to change up techniques as coyotes are quite intuitive.
 
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I would use the Cat scenario to your advantage also. I don't know your area, as for the density of housing around you, but if they are preying on your neighbor cats or dogs, once they get a taste of kitty, they take all opps to get more. I have a recorded tom-cat fight with hissing and yowling that I have literally brought in a dog from close to a mile away. Once I played it, the ears went up, pinpointed where I was (laying in a snow drift in the wheat stubble) and off he came on a sprint. Covered that near mile in no time and popped up front-on at 75yds, kaboom, dead dog. For some reason, that dog like kitty and I used it to my advantage, esp. around farm buildings, or in your case, maybe a neighbors farm.
 
Thanks for the advice, it all seems good to me. My problem is that there are few days that the wind is reliable. On my gun barrel, climbing stand ect I tie about 3 ft. of sewing thread and have watched the wind blow in one direction, stop, then back up for a few seconds. This shifting is the worst in the last hour of light. In Florida we can't use lights at night either??!!? Also I have a thin cloth streamer about 6ft long hanging from a pecan tree out in the open that I watch from the porch and decide where and how or if I can hunt. This is thick cover and that stop, start, backup saturates the area that I can see. I have called some in close enough to get a quick look and they get down wind and are gone. Deer the same thing. Went to SentLock/whole nine yards last year for bow hunting. It is a help but not foolproof. Haven't tried it for varmits yet. We can't use e-calls in Florida so that eliminates a remote call @x+*!!
What I most wanted to know is, What is all the yipping etc about. Just a social gathering? Made a kill? We have deer fawns now weened and have lost their spots. The whole pack, sounds like they are together. Then most times the other 2 Packs chime in.
 
What I most wanted to know is, What is all the yipping etc about. Just a social gathering? Made a kill? We have deer fawns now weened and have lost their spots. The whole pack, sounds like they are together. Then most times the other 2 Packs chime in
It's usually the pack is getting ready for the night hunt. Then later on in the early morning (couple hours before dawn) then will usually re-group and do their serenade again.
 
I doubt your dealing with true packs! If they are feeding on cats and dogs they don't need a group approach. How large are these groups 2-3 coyotes? Or more? Not very many areas of the US do you have true packs of coyotes, in areas of harsh winters or a crash in small prey base where they hunt larger ungulates you will have family groups that hunt together longer into the winter months, but with breeding season approaching those groups will tend to break up Jan_feb in most areas,unless the prey base and weather factor into it as mentioned.
I doubt in florida you are having a harsh winter? Your looking at I'm betting good habitat with decent prey and you have 2-3 family groups or just off spring Young of year coyotes answering back to each other so things don't get to testy.
The howling just helps you determine where to make your stands, coyote vocals are great at all times of the year and in the summer months I use them almost exclusively, but as mentioned a domestic cat in distress would fit nicely, maybe add in some young coyote barks and yips, make it seem as a new young buster has come into the area, that should rile them up to come for a look see. Play the wind and the sun and you should have good results.
 
ADC is correct. Coyotes do not "Pack" in the way wolves do. A group of coyotes is usually a family. This is December. Courting season, pup dispersal season, territory selection season. Coyotes are very active this time of year. You may be hearing 2-3 pups who have been run off by their parents, and are looking for their other siblings.

Try to get the idea of a "pack of coyotes" out of your mind. DNA testing has proven that there ain't no such thing. If you happen to see a group of coyotes hunting together, there's a 99.9% probability that it's just mom, dad, and the kids.
 
Right on NASA, Ive never seen a pack of coyotes in Arizona, ever. Ive seen small family groups, and what people usually describe as a "pack" howling and yipping, is usually two to three coyotes, they can sound like a half dozen. I think it's semantics, the term "pack" is engrained in our hunting lexicon,and needs to go. Wolves form "packs", coyotes are just pairs, or a pair with a few young tagging along.
 
I kinda have to go against what some are saying here, my father and his friend witnessed 9 coyotes all together one night out in a cotton field on our land. I believe they can get in large groups...
 
Regancy coyotes will tolerate others in some situations, but to say I saw 6-10 coyotes in a close area as a pack dynamic just isn't what holds to what a pack trully is all about. just my opinion.

In the spring coyote pairs will be in real close proximity to one another at calving time as they all are looking for that high protein after birth, but as the days wain on and the females start to select and clean out denning holes, the territory's are defended with more gusto, habitat and prey and the makeup of those pairs will decide how big those defended areas will be.
If you locate them they all sound like a monster pack, but not the truth just different make up's of pairs and singles. All converging on a food source of limited time.
 
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I kinda have to go against what some are saying here, my father and his friend witnessed 9 coyotes all together one night out in a cotton field on our land. I believe they can get in large groups...




Well, you just don't have enough facts to let you know otherwise, lol. Did you know that the average coyote litter size is six pups? That's a family group of eight, right there. In a year when food is bountiful, litter size can be eight pups. It is also during these times of plenty that a breeding pair will allow one, and sometimes two, pups from the prior litter to remain with them. These pups are not driven off and are allowed to hang around as Omega "babysitters" and food gatherers. So it is very possible to see a group of coyotes as large as twelve animals. And it is still just mom, dad, and the kids.
 
Our records have been in that range for many years doing placental scar checks we sit right at 5.5-5.7 pup's per female and it doesn't vary much as far as average, you do have a few of those 8-10's but not the norm.
This is in an area of decent coyote control, so it goes against some research that shows coyotes have the ability to adjust litter size to pressure, if that does take place it isn't in a number that can be trully seen as an increase in average.
 
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Took a friend coyote hunting today. As we approached a large sagebrush bottom the coyotes started howling maybe a mile up the draw. Not a warning bark but just howling like they were checking to see where all the coyotes were. We were walking in full whites on the snow and hadn't made a sound. It was around 9:30 AM. My friend looks at me and sayes we been spotted they won't come in. I called anyway and of course nothing came in. But I know in the past I have called in howling coyotes. Any truth to this that howling coyotes won't come in? I know the warning bark is game over but this wasn't a warning bark.
 
Being a newcomer to living with coyotes this is very interesting. You-all know that with Disney and all down here, it is a fanatsy land. Our deer breed over a long period, as proved by seeing spoted fawns mostly in October but I have seen them through Febuary. Other parts of FL they breed at varing times per biologist/FL's FWC. Prey is plentiful here, deer/fawns, rabbits, rats, fox, coons, turkeys, gut piles wounded deer and dead deer, hogs or whatever some people shoot and leave. They will even eat watermellons, truth.
Ok, I live in the N.W. tip of Florida about a mile off of a North/South highway, there are a few houses toward the hwy and 2 below me. We back up to 21,048 acre Blue Water Creek Management area/ tree farm. Road runs east and west, deadends at the BWC gate 1/2 mi. east of me.
Most nights we hear coyotes in three different directions. When one "assembly" of them start the others chime in. One "assemly" is usually N.W. of here, about 1/2-3/4 mi. no houses on hwy there. Sometimes they sound like they may be across the hwy.
One "assembly" is straight S. anywhere from 1/2-1.5 mi. Usually on the back side (east) of a 300 acre field.
The other group moves around inside of the mgt. area. Any where from N. to E. North they are usually around some now dry ponds and from 200yds to 1/2 mi away. E. they can be a long ways off or occasionally within 300yds. They may howl, bark, and yip at any time of night, rarely in daylight. No set time like 1st dark etc. If one "assembly" starts almost always the others will to.
Now don't hold it against me but I grew up in N. FL with a dog hunting Pa and it sounds like maybe up to 16-12 per "assembly" (hard to tell the way they carry on)at times. Maybe they change their voice? They are usually close together but some times we hear one that is out from the rest. Sometimes they sound like (if they were dogs) that they were catching something? They are rarely seen and very few are hit on the roads. They are in every other nook and cranny in these parts. Nobody is hunting them in these parts but a few are killed by deer hunters. Most farmers don't mind them becouse they eat deer which eat crops. Not a lot of ranching right here. I am really enjoying your discussion on this subject. Thanks.
 
JCL, if they spotted you then odds are low if that is what triggered there howling, work them from a different direction undetected and you will have better odds.

The calls I use in some months elicit barking and howling and alot of the times that means they are on the way fast or holding tight. It depends if your within the core they defend then if they didn't spot you they are coming and fast, most of the time they make some noise and then come in silent.

If they just stay out and carry on with challenge bark/howls and after 15-20 minutes no luck, I look for a different avenue that can get me closer or come back and try them again closer that afternoon or early the next morning. This is in denning situations. Same can hold true as breeding picks up and on into Feb/march.
 
Mid-January one Winter. I watched from afar[1/2 mile away] for quite awhile. A group of males, following a female. They all were close together. But the males kept a space between themselves & the female.

She'd stop, the males were[grouped in tight single file, behind her]. Then they would all stop. All the males keep in a straight line, none breaking rank. The lead male kept a moderate space between themselves & the female.

She peed, then slowly walked forward. The males, in close single file, each took their turn peeing on her spot. Very interesting to watch. I gave them all a free pass for the education & moved on.

Sometimes, I've used the term "pack" in conversation of coyotes. Although, not correct. I don't get to hung up on some definitions. But tend to use them loosley.

Like, Dispersed; Scattered, pushed-out, run-off, ect.
 
Call it a pack or a family group or whatever. This year on a piece of state land that does not get hunted ever, I saw 9 coyotes (that I could count) they bolted and ran off. I can't say what they were doing (hunting, playing or what). It was September so I know they were not breeding.

2 years ago while deer hunting I saw 6 Coyotes tailing a group of 4 deer. They never saw me, so it was cool to watch them hunt.

Later that same day I spoke with a man on the same ridge I was hunting that saw a "pack" of 15 to 20. He says he was able to shoot 3 before they all scattered. I have never seen that many in one group but who knows.

The 3x4 Buck I shot that year was being circled by 2 coyotes for about 10 minutes. He just stood them off until they decided he was not game and they walked off together. Poor guy he survived the coyotes but not the 30-06.
 
Yellowhammer: Since you are a wildlife biologist, perhaps you have access to an article I read several years ago, but cannot find now. If I remember right, this happened in North Dakota. The Fish & Wildlife Department had a major problem with a bad drop in numbers of their antelope herd. They put night vision cameras out on tripods over a large plains area, and found out that large packs of coyotes were criss cross hunting the area with unbelievable efficiency. They called in government hunters and trappers and the antelope herd there returned to normal in short order. I have noticed that several people have posted on this forum and other forums that coyotes do not pack like wolves, but the article I read seems to contradict that. I know they have started packing up in Kentucky, having called in as many as 13 in a pack one time, 11 another time, and 9 another. The multiples I have called in that consisted of 4 to 6 coyotes resembled a family group, with the varying size of the coyotes involved indicating so. The groups of 13, 11, and 9 seemed to all be fully mature coyotes, indicating the probability of them being a pack. Another point that indicates this is the case to me is the size of the calves and other livestock and wild game they have taken down in the last 6 years or so around here. Your expert opinion and any info you might have on the article I mentioned would be appreciated.
 
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