American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West

by Nate Blakeslee

One of the most dramatic changes concerned coyotes. Yellowstone had long hosted one of the densest coyote populations in North America, but that quickly changed with the reintroduction of wolves. After decades as Yellowstone’s top canines, the park’s coyotes seemed to have lost their collective memory of how to coexist with their much larger relatives. They routinely approached wolves feeding on carcasses, as was their habit when they spotted an easy meal. Time and again wolf-watchers observed coyotes realizing their fatal mistake far too late, as the faster and more powerful wolves easily ran them down and killed them. Wolves colonizing new areas of the park routinely dug up and destroyed coyote dens, killing any pups they found, to eliminate competition for prey and to make their own dens safer. In short order, Yellowstone’s newly dominant canines reduced the Northern Range’s coyote population by half.