We get some unusual wildlife in these parts every now and then. This is an eastern coyote photographed on the beach a few days ago.
The eastern coyote is one of 19 subspecies of coyote, which are adaptable predators that live everywhere from the streets of Los Angeles to Florida swamps. The eastern subspecies, which ranges as far west as Ohio, is thought to have migrated to the Northeast some 80 years ago, taking over the range occupied by wolves and interbreeding with the larger animals.
They no longer overlap with wolves, which are long gone from the East save for the very rare red wolf, but they remain eight to 25 percent wolf genetically, said Roland Kays, a leading coyote biologist with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
They are also about eight to 11 percent dog due to past interbreeding with feral dogs, he said. The eastern coyote remains capable of having pups with dogs, but it’s not common in part because their breeding cycles don’t neatly overlap.
Hybridization with wolves gave eastern coyotes their size and weight, with eastern coyotes averaging about 35 pounds and the Western subspecies averaging about 25 pounds.
Scientists see evidence that the wolf DNA is increasingly helping the eastern coyotes survive, Kays said. And they might also be growing in number.