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What Is a Wyote? And Why Are They In Siskiyou County?

by William Simpson II Views: 6407

In the eastern United States, there exists a hybrid wolf that is known as the Coy-Wolf. 

Coyotes favor open spaces, but wolves do better with forestry. Coywolves? They love both. And in the last decade, they’ve even sprung up in cities like Boston, Washington DC, and New York City. The Gotham Coyote Project counts 20 of the hybrids in New York. Image from “Meet the Coywolf,” a documentary by Susan Fleming.

It is cross between eastern grey wolves and possibly red wolves and coyotes. Like dogs, where a larger breed can mate with a smaller breed resulting in a litter of hybrids, wolves and coyotes have the ability to do the same.  

Scientists have, for some reason, decided it was a good thing to breed Coy-wolves in captivity, as this WIki article explains:

Northwestern wolf × coyote hybrid experiment

A F1 hybrid coyote-gray wolf hybrid, conceived in captivity

“In 2013, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services conducted a captive-breeding experiment at their National Wildlife Research Center Predator Research Facility in Logan, Utah. Using gray wolves from British Columbia and western coyotes, they produced six hybrids, making this the first hybridization case between pure coyotes and northwestern wolves. The experiment, which used artificial insemination, was intended to determine whether or not the sperm of the larger gray wolves in the west was capable of fertilizing the egg cells of western coyotes. Aside from the historical hybridizations between coyotes and the smaller Mexican wolves in the south, as well as with eastern wolves and red wolves, gray wolves from the northwestern US and western provinces of Canada were not known to interbreed with coyotes in the wild, thus prompting the experiment.

The six resulting hybrids included four males and two females. At six months of age, the hybrids were closely monitored and were shown to display both physical and behavioral characteristics from both species, as well as some physical similarities to the eastern wolves, whose status as a distinct wolf species or as a genetically distinct subspecies of the gray wolf is controversial. Regardless, the result of this experiment concluded that northwestern wolves, much like the eastern wolves, red wolves, Mexican wolves, and domestic dogs, are capable of hybridizing with coyotes.” ~ Wiki

Back in 2014, I began hearing the calls of what I believed was a wolf in the canyon that holds Jenny Creek, just above the Klamath River. It sounded like a lone wolf calling, possibly looking for a date. The call of a wolf is distinctively different than those of the local coyotes. 

Then in 2016, I noticed a sharp increase in the predation of deer and our heritage horses. I intensified the frequency and duration of my field studies, hoping to determine the cause of the increased predatory pressure on the local game and horse population which was dropping. Of course predators, like mountain lions and coyotes, are very stealthy and difficult to observe, let alone observing them in the act of taking game, livestock, or the native heritage horses. 

Then in 2017, on one of my hundred or so field surveys of the range, wildlife and heritage horses on the Oregon-California border, I happened upon a pack of unusually large-bodied coyotes that had surrounded a small band of horses, on a south-facing hillside. 

The band had a new foal and it was apparent these big predators were attempting to scatter the family to pick-off the foal, which was easy prey.  As I moved closer to attempt to get a photo (I didn’t have a telephoto lens) the pack spotted me and disappeared into the nearby oak trees. I didn’t get the photo I wanted, but the consolation was the foal survived the incident.

I wondered about this sighting for days, asking myself the question, what kind of coyotes get that big?  My answer came in the coming days and months as I continued to drill-down on my question.

Then on a field survey at the edge of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument a few months later, I came across one of the large-bodied coyotes, dead.  Someone had shot it, and spiked it to a 6-foot tall post that was part of some legacy ranching structures.

Photo: William E. Simpson II 

As the photo above shows, this is an abnormally large coyote, which hangs the length of the 6-foot tall telephone pole post.  My guess is that this animal probably weighed (live weight) around 70-pounds, and was considerably larger than any coyote I had observed over a period of 60-years in this region. 

In the 1960’s when I rode fence and shot predators to protect our calves and lambs at our ranch in the Applegate Valley, I saw many predators from the back of my horse. I never saw a coyote this big.  I suspect that this animal (and others like it) were the result of the lonely wolf that I heard calling for a date back in 2014. Seems he had a few successful dates.

Since the eastern U.S. had already used to term ‘coy-wolf’, I wanted to have a term for our version of these hybrids, and so I dubbed our local hybrids ‘Wyotes‘  (western wolf-coyote hybrids)

And this may be the beginning of a trend, since we know there are numerous wolf packs in the area now.  If these packs splinter resulting in lonely males, they may find company with coyotes and the resulting population of these robust hybrid predators could grow.

Author: William Simpson IIWilliam E. Simpson II is an ethologist living among and studying free-roaming native species American wild horses. William is the award-winning producer of the micro-documentary film 'Wild Horses'. He is the author of a new Study about the behavioral ecology of wild horses, two published books and more than 150 published articles on subjects related to wild horses, wildlife, wildfire, and public land (forest) management. He has appeared on NBC NEWS, ABC NEWS, CBS NEWS, theDoveTV and has been a guest on numerous talk radio shows including the Lars Larson Show, the Bill Meyer Show, NPR Jefferson Public Radio and NPR National Radio.

5 Comments

  1. Sharon Jerge
    October 27, 2023 at 11:32 am  ·  Reply

    Heritage horses? Seems from what I have been reading most if not all cattle barons would like all the horses removed! Check out Save Alberta Wildies . I think there is room for all if there were less cattle. If we don’t let the predators take down the weak sick deer we are going to have deer wasting disease here sooner or later. I don’t agree with populating the wolves just to be tormented to be killed. Love your reporting.

  2. E
    October 27, 2023 at 2:32 pm  ·  Reply

    In Southeastern Ohio outside cities like Zanesville, there is the coy dog. Been around for ages, I’ve never seen one up close but they’re very vocal at night.

  3. Sam Dedon
    November 11, 2023 at 11:52 pm  ·  Reply

    Um, this is pure bafoonery. Start to finish.

    Siskiyou News… no fact checking? Credibility is an important and delicate thing, this is so bad you’ve lost my sense that you’re legit…despite the author’s self described media exposure…

    • Avatar photo Publisher
      November 12, 2023 at 6:03 am  ·  Reply

      FACT CHECKING, THE FACT IS WE HAVE HAD WOLF CROSSES HERE IN SISKIYOU FOR A VERY LONG TIME. THE CDFW HAS KNOWN OF THIS FOR 20 YEARS. RANCHERS, AND FARMERS SEE AND HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS ISSUES. when the crosses start eating spotted owls then maybe someone might start taking notice. thanks for your comment!

  4. P. Bergen
    May 25, 2024 at 1:05 pm  ·  Reply

    In 1990, I believe I saw a creature you describe while living on the Klamath River 8 miles out of Happy Camp. It was slowly walking about 300 yards from us on the flat below our home. At first I thought it was a wolf, then maybe a large coyote. Beautiful. Never saw it again.

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