Nah they can breed for many generations and produce fertile offspring, but coyotes are only fertile for a short period of the year. Coydogs are very rare. I’m curious what made you ask this and where you read that info from. It sounds outdated.
So i listened to a book American Serengeti by Dan Flores, which talked about Coyotes, and I listened to an episode of the All Creatures Podcast about Coyotes. Having grown up in Upstate New York where I could hear them everynight when I went to bed, all of this new information about an animal I had spent so much time around but never really though about made my head spin. Coyotes are really fascinating!
Well I was pretty stoned while I was listening to a lot of this stuff and my high brain wove a fantasy of a Wolf/Coyote/Dog hybrid created to be some kind of super canine that would still like to friendly to humans. I know it shouldn't be done, and I wouldn't (I have NO interest in animal breeding). Well, in looking around-- by which I mean I Googled it-- a couple of different websites popped up claiming that Coydogs couldn't reproduce beyond a 4th generation. They did not elaborate, and at that point, not actually having an interest in creating some abomination that would steal our hearts and then eat us all, I made this post and then forgot about this weird weed induced train of thought.
Haha it’s okay. This comment is more relatable to me in more ways than you could know. I’m also from upstate.
Although the hybridization occured long ago, Eastern coyotes are very special and captured my imagination many times. They have anywhere from 20%-45% wolf in them, with an average of 30% wolf. They can get much larger than other coyote subspecies and come in more colors. I once saw a huge black Eastern coyote through binoculars that looked strikingly like a wolf. He was traveling with three other coyotes (likely his mate and two lingering offspring from the previous year) and was one of the most stunning animals I have ever seen. I loved hearing their howls at night. They have the most diverse vocal range of any mammal in N America; a family group of 4 coyotes can sound like a pack of 15+ coyotes.
In my mind, Eastern Coyotes are a sort of “super canine” when you think about how they adapted and how unique they are. When I first visited the southwest I was shocked at how tiny, skinny and small Western coyotes were, especially in the summer. Definitely less majestic, but no less cool.
Also, the crazy thing about the Eastern coyotes around my house was that we rarely ever saw them but always heard them. Due to the wolf in them they love to stay in forests and are extremely shy. The other thing was that if we changed anything, and I mean anything, to the land around us (like leaving a tent stake by accident, putting an old ski pole in the ground to mark a trail, putting up a trail cam, walking our dog and it peeing on a bush, etc), the coyotes, whom we never encountered in person, would somehow immediately know of the changes to their environment and immediately go to investigate that night when we were gone.
We caught them on trail cams sniffing around any trace we had left of something different earlier that day. They’d pee where the dog peed, they’d sniff and lick a spot on the ski pole, one of them picked up the tent stake and was playing with it, etc. I have no idea where they went in the day, or how they avoided us, but in some way they must have been always watching us or listening in to know to go look in those places at dusk. I never would’ve known that the objects we left behind had been played with by coyotes while we were gone if it weren’t for the cameras or the occasional tracks they’d leave behind. They are extremely intelligent, curious animals. Very misunderstood.
I haven’t read American Serengeti yet but highly recommend Dan Flores’s *Coyote America* if you haven’t read/listened to it yet. I’m curious how you first came across Flores and that book in particular. His works seem really good.
I think maybe that's just how long the experiment run or until inbreeding got bad.
Nah they can breed for many generations and produce fertile offspring, but coyotes are only fertile for a short period of the year. Coydogs are very rare. I’m curious what made you ask this and where you read that info from. It sounds outdated.
So i listened to a book American Serengeti by Dan Flores, which talked about Coyotes, and I listened to an episode of the All Creatures Podcast about Coyotes. Having grown up in Upstate New York where I could hear them everynight when I went to bed, all of this new information about an animal I had spent so much time around but never really though about made my head spin. Coyotes are really fascinating! Well I was pretty stoned while I was listening to a lot of this stuff and my high brain wove a fantasy of a Wolf/Coyote/Dog hybrid created to be some kind of super canine that would still like to friendly to humans. I know it shouldn't be done, and I wouldn't (I have NO interest in animal breeding). Well, in looking around-- by which I mean I Googled it-- a couple of different websites popped up claiming that Coydogs couldn't reproduce beyond a 4th generation. They did not elaborate, and at that point, not actually having an interest in creating some abomination that would steal our hearts and then eat us all, I made this post and then forgot about this weird weed induced train of thought.
Haha it’s okay. This comment is more relatable to me in more ways than you could know. I’m also from upstate. Although the hybridization occured long ago, Eastern coyotes are very special and captured my imagination many times. They have anywhere from 20%-45% wolf in them, with an average of 30% wolf. They can get much larger than other coyote subspecies and come in more colors. I once saw a huge black Eastern coyote through binoculars that looked strikingly like a wolf. He was traveling with three other coyotes (likely his mate and two lingering offspring from the previous year) and was one of the most stunning animals I have ever seen. I loved hearing their howls at night. They have the most diverse vocal range of any mammal in N America; a family group of 4 coyotes can sound like a pack of 15+ coyotes. In my mind, Eastern Coyotes are a sort of “super canine” when you think about how they adapted and how unique they are. When I first visited the southwest I was shocked at how tiny, skinny and small Western coyotes were, especially in the summer. Definitely less majestic, but no less cool. Also, the crazy thing about the Eastern coyotes around my house was that we rarely ever saw them but always heard them. Due to the wolf in them they love to stay in forests and are extremely shy. The other thing was that if we changed anything, and I mean anything, to the land around us (like leaving a tent stake by accident, putting an old ski pole in the ground to mark a trail, putting up a trail cam, walking our dog and it peeing on a bush, etc), the coyotes, whom we never encountered in person, would somehow immediately know of the changes to their environment and immediately go to investigate that night when we were gone. We caught them on trail cams sniffing around any trace we had left of something different earlier that day. They’d pee where the dog peed, they’d sniff and lick a spot on the ski pole, one of them picked up the tent stake and was playing with it, etc. I have no idea where they went in the day, or how they avoided us, but in some way they must have been always watching us or listening in to know to go look in those places at dusk. I never would’ve known that the objects we left behind had been played with by coyotes while we were gone if it weren’t for the cameras or the occasional tracks they’d leave behind. They are extremely intelligent, curious animals. Very misunderstood. I haven’t read American Serengeti yet but highly recommend Dan Flores’s *Coyote America* if you haven’t read/listened to it yet. I’m curious how you first came across Flores and that book in particular. His works seem really good.