Coyote Wolf Hybrids in Pennsylvania - Coywolves

Though living in a wooded area, we garden in a small clearing about 400 feet from where we live. In late spring this year, on two different occasions, while I was setting out tomato plants in early morning hours, I was treated to the blood-curdling howls and yelps of a coyote pack just a few hundred feet east of our home. It seems this area is making a fierce attempt to return our populated area backward to the new frontier days of the wild west - and we, as members of the self-confessed club of the inexperienced and untrained in the area of dangerous wild animals must now adjust our decades of relaxed city slicker ways.

Coyotes - Prairie Wolves

Coyotes, also called prairie wolves, in the western area of the U.S. usually weigh under 35 pounds but genetic testing or DNA profiles along with skull studies have shown that somewhere in their travels western coyotes have interbred with wolves and are now in some east coast areas, including Pennsylvania and New York, giving us coywolves - animals that could weigh more than 60 pounds - so say researchers Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum; Jeremy Kirchman, curator of birds at the same museum and Abigail Curtis, graduate student at the University of California in Los Angeles.

Coywolves have wider skulls and more powerful jaws than coyotes and the bigger and more muscular animal can now take more and bigger game.

"Song Dogs"

Some American Indians had a name for coyotes, song dogs. They are one of the most adaptable animals in the world and are capable of making a wide range of howls, yelps, whines, barks and growls. They usually bear 3 - 9 pups in April or May and the pups live in the den for 6 - 10 weeks.The mother then starts training them to hunt mostly small wild animals or pets like cats and dogs.

Though usually eating smaller wild animals they hunt together or in packs to bring down larger prey like a young deer or pony. They hunt by tracking prey, stalking it for 20 - 30 minutes before pouncing.

Two Coyotes Attack and Kill a Female Hiker in Canada

In a national park in eastern Canada recently, 2 coyotes hunted, stalked and killed a young female hiker. The once secretive and smaller hunter, the coyote, may now have become a larger and more powerful hybrid and one we should be learning more about.

Sources:
wolf_in_their_background.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_sounds_do_coyotes_make
http://www.desertusa.com/june96/du_cycot.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33509516/ns/world_news-americas/