"Truly a dream come true."

Without question, this is the easiest way to describe this project. Realizing that coyotes are so difficult to observe in the wild, I knew that a companion study of captive coyotes (from the same population of coyotes) would be an ideal complement to the wild radio-tracking portion of our study. A big thanks goes to Zoo New England for continuing with this project at the Stone Zoo despite the recent budget cuts in the state of Massachusetts. Another big thanks goes to Zoo New England, The Animal Care Committee at Boston College, and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife for providing permits for this study and therefore allowing it to proceed.

Most people ask me, "Aren't your results going to be severely biased because the animals are in captivity and not with any parents."

To the surprise of many people, canids (wolves, coyotes, and foxes) show many species specific behaviors even in captivity. The goal of our project is to research the interactions amongst littermates. When compared to both red and gray wolves and western coyotes, eastern coyote development may show interesting trends and may provide possible implications for the taxonomic status of eastern coyotes (see introduction).

Our study involves socializing the pups to people so they feel comfortable when they interact with each other. The pups are so highly bonded to me, they (upon my initial entrance into their exhibit) follow me around in their exhibit (at Stone Zoo) and come running over to me and howl with me when I howl. The bonding has worked so well the coyotes even play and fight literally on my lap.

As a routine, I simply go into the exhibit with them and record how they interact with each other and what else they do. However, before that happens I typically need to greet them for 15-20 minutes in order to settle them down. This involves sitting down and letting them climb all over me. It also involves giving them mice, chicken chicks, and rats (all dead prior to giving them to the pups) from my hand so they associate me as their provider (i.e., their parent). It also includes me petting them and giving them individual attention. The 15-20 minute bonding sessions also involves me howling and getting them to perform a group howl with me. And, finally, interacting with coyotes, the socialization process simply involves letting coyotes be coyotes. I have to accept and respect the fact that I will get bitten, scratched and clawed when I am in there with them. Despite their roughness with me, they are, however, much tougher with each other. For instance, one of their forms of play involves pinning each other to the ground and biting each other's necks. Sounds like fun, huh!

I want to stress here that socializing (or taming) coyotes to people is much different than domesticating them. When they were at my house, they started to absolutely drive me crazy by chewing and climbing on my couch and bed, urinating and deficating on my rug despite having access outside. I found out very quickly why coyotes (even tamed/socialized to people) need to be in a naturalistic setting like a zoo. It would be much too expensive (and probably illegal) to raise coyotes in a group in an appropriate setting at one's private home.

And one last thing before continuing on with this captive pup section. I want to stress here that I treat the captive pups much differently than wild coyotes. The captive situation is a once in a lifetime opportunity. In order to do the study, we needed to receive 3 separate permits that, in total, took 2 years to get. Thus, it was not an easy process to go through. People should not attempt to bond with wild coyotes. We give all our coyotes plenty of distance and try not to disturb them. They do not like to be around people even though they commonly forage in urban areas.

Wild coyotes should never be fed or approached by people. They do not make good pets and will only cause problems if accustomed to human feedings.

Remember this adage: A fed coyote is a dead coyote! Period! Do not feed wild animals.

If you will, I hope to now take you on this tremendous journey of raising a litter of wild born captive coyote pups. Please click here.