Perhaps because I’m an unemployed freeloader, I find that I like the less appreciated, more aggravating and entertaining animals. As I’ve said before, I really enjoy crows, ravens, blue jays, Stellar’s jays, grey jays, and, now, magpies and Clark’s nutcrackers. In addition to this selection of birds, and bolstered by the ranger talk we heard on Monday night, I also like coyotes.

Coyotes are ordinary. Their latin name, canis latrans, means barking dog. They aren’t as big or as handsome and intimidating as wolves. They often look bedraggled. They eat anything.

The coyote is one of the most universal images in Native American iconography and folklore. Even before European settlers came to North America coyotes were considered tricksters, fools, thieves, and undying. Why undying? I’ll get to that.

Coyotes shared the continent with wolves who are three to four times larger. Wolves hate coyotes and will kill them just to kill them. Wolves are specialist hunters and, being bigger and meaner, got first pick of what to eat. They chose deer, elk, bison, moose — the big game. Coyotes are generalists, which is a fancy way to say they’ll eat whatever comes along. Although they mostly prefer rabbits and mice.

When settlers arrived and began pushing West, hunting and farming, they killed all of the wolves and coyotes they could. They also killed the big game for themselves. The wolf was doubly decimated. He was being killed and his food supply was being taken from him. He was also a more prominent target. Meanwhile the coyotes scraped together their regular meals and tried to stay out of trouble.

Wolves never bounced back and are only now increasing their numbers with a lot of human intervention. Coyotes are thriving in 49 states and if they learn to purchase airline tickets, or take up distance swimming, they’ll be in all 50. Why? They eat anything. They don’t waste energy. They’re really smart.

Coyotes will take turns chasing the same deer, tag-team style, to tire it out. They actually have some weird alliance with badgers. They’ll show a badger to the front of the den of some hapless burrowing animal like the prairie dog. The badger, smelling a meal, will dig dig dig! The coyote will go around to the back door and wait for the poor critters to head his way. Easy pickin’s. Coyotes can dig into a bank up to twenty feet (!), but getting the badger to do it saves energy. It’s not clear what the badger gets out of this deal.

Are you a sheep or goat farmer? Get a good dog who sticks with the flock and keeps an eye out for coyotes. You best get a female. Apparently, there are accounts of coyote pairs who will work together to grab a sheep or two. The female is able to send all the right messages to the male dog guarding the flock, causing him to ignore the flock and follow her. She leads him far away and her other half gets dinner.

Now for the coyote secret weapon. When a pack is stressed, because they are being hunted aggressively or losing members for some other reason, the females will often have much larger litters — instead of 5-7 pups, maybe even twice that. Females may even go into estrus one or two extra times in a year. This means you can’t get rid of coyotes. You can only encourage a whole lot more!

So, they are excellent survivors and that’s impressive. Plus they are at worst a nuisance for farmers of livestock and people with ultra-lightweight, hand-portable dogs. Mostly they’re just trying to get by.

Unfortunately, they do eat magpies.