Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but then I watched the trailer for the upcoming 2025 ‘Coyotes’ movie and realize that Hollywood can suck even worse. Let us discuss.
First, why wolves are known to be man-eaters (in the
past, however distant), and coyotes are not? Frankly because they do not have
the strength. A grey wolf (not to be confused with several other canine/lupine
species) and a coyote look superficially similar, but the wolf is much more
formidable.
A coyote – on average – is about 1 m in length,
(without the tail) and weighs about 16 kg. A grey wolf, on the other hand, is
about 1.5 m in length (also without the tail) and weighs about 60 kg. Most of
this weight comes from muscle, and a wolf’s skull and jaws are wider and
stronger than those of the coyote are; a coyote is more of a precise strike
carnivore, and a grey wolf aims for greater mass damage instead.
Again, how do carnivorous mammals kill? In general,
(there are always exceptions), they either go for a precise strike (on the
throat, more rarely on the muzzle or even the skull), or, conversely, they bite
and tear – tear off pieces of flesh, live… You need physical strength in both
of these scenarios, of course, but the second one requires a much stronger
bite, and a much stronger (and durable) body to handle such rough hunting.
Lions, spotted hyenas, and grey wolves have it, and they all hunt big prey –
African buffalo, antelopes, and deer (including the elk and sometimes the
moose), in case of the wolves.
By contrast, the jackal and the red fox, the coyote
and the striped & brown hyena do not normally hunt big animals; they prefer
to scavenge, or to eat smaller prey, such as rodents, rabbits, and hares. The
hyenas, true, have a more powerful bite than their canine counterparts do, but
they are still at half the size of the spotted hyena, and in general defer to
it, when they encounter it.
The ancestor of the more successful spotted hyena
drove the ancestors of the striped and brown hyenas into the African deserts,
and sort of forced the ancestor of the aardwolf to become an obligate
insectivore – but we digress.
…Only not, for in North America the relationship
between grey wolves and coyotes isn’t unlike that of… lions and spotted hyenas,
for example, only more one-sided: the wolves’ tower over their coyote cousins,
they are much stronger and heavier than the coyotes are, and they hunt in large
packs, while coyotes hunt in pairs or alone. There is footage – from the
Yellowstone Park – of wolves killing coyotes in packs. One on one, a wolf might
let a coyote be; a wolf pack will make short work of it.
Enter humans. They drove the grey wolf to extinction
in the North American East, and in the West its’ population is still reduced.
The coyote adapted and flourished alongside humans, (as did the raccoon and the
red fox)… but there were no cases of attacks on humans by any of them, (unless
rabies or a similar factor was involved). The coyote may look like a wolf,
generally, but unlike the wolf, it is not mentally wired to tackle prey as big
as an adult human being… Enter the coydog.
It is exactly what it sounds like – it is a hybrid
of a domestic dog, (either intentionally or a feral animal), and a coyote. Just
like its’ bigger cousin the wolfdog, this hybrid seems to be quite fertile,
(but then again, the question if the domestic dog an independent species, a
subspecies of the grey wolf, or just a domesticated wolf with artificially
derived physical differences is still open), and is doing well enough in North
America.
The American coyote is not known to be a man-eater.
The Australian dingo, (again, either a domestic dog turned wild, a separate
species, a subspecies, or something else entirely), is. In addition, unlike the
coyote it hunts in packs, as the grey wolf – or the feral populations of the
domestic dog – do. More succinctly, the dingo is not as big as the grey wolf
is, but it can be dangerous to people, and sometimes, it is.
Now, in North America, we get cases of domestic dogs
interbreeding with grey wolves and especially coyotes – and unlike them,
domestic dogs are not afraid of humans. Oh, they are peoples’ best friends, but
with a metaphorical switch, they can be their worst enemies instead. When they
attack, the results are bad and often deadly for the humans. You put in coyote,
let alone grey wolf DNA into the mix, and the result is worse – but where does
it leave the upcoming ‘Coyotes’ movie?
‘Coyotes’ apparently aims to be a social satire or
something else, not unlike how ‘The Death of a Unicorn’ was. (Remember that sad
pile of horse apples?) Fair enough, and the script is intentionally screwy and
unrealistic – but the poor coyotes. Moreover, my point is that if they renamed
the film ‘Coydogs’, and had not purebred coyotes, but coyote-feral dog
crossbreeds, it would have worked just as well, and been more accurate, so
there is that. The movie cast and crew decided that that would be too much effort,
so we will probably end up with some anti-coyote hysteria, something that we do
not really need right now – but it is real life. It sucks.
This is it for now – see you all soon!
