A coyote apparently pushed its luck too far with a mountain lion in the Red Desert east of Farson and ended up becoming the big cat’s supper.
The two species compete when their habitats overlap, biologists said. Most of the time, run-ins between mountain lions and coyotes end with both walking away unharmed.
Still, it’s not unheard of for mountain lions to take out coyotes that get too close to big-game animals that the lions have killed. And sometimes, mountain lions will even deliberately hunt coyotes.
Retired biologist Franz Camenzind of Jackson previously praised a pair of coyotes as “ballsy” for chasing a grizzly away from their pup den in Yellowstone National Park.
However, the coyotes don’t always win, he told Cowboy State Daily.
“It’s a rough world out there,” said Camenzind, who studied coyote behavior in and around the National Elk Refuge near Jackson.
Red Desert Drama
Jeremy Kaiser of Kemmerer loves shed antler hunting in some of Wyoming’s most remote country.
He and his son were recently out hunting sheds in the vast expanses of the Red Desert. They expected to have good luck.
“People don’t realize the number of animals that are out in that country. It’s an amazing wildlife refuge, it’s crazy,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Toward evening, Kaiser’s son was watching a herd in the distance through a spotting scope when suddenly he announced, “I see a cat walking out there with something or other,” Kaiser said.
The mountain lion was roughly a mile away. Even through the powerful spotting scope it was difficult to tell what type of carcass the mountain lion had in its jaws, but they thought it was a coyote.
“That’s the mountain lion I’ve seen just out roaming around like that, and I spend practically all my time out in the hills,” Kaiser said.
Kaiser connected his cellphone to the spotting scope and caught video of the mountain lion dragging its prey across the desert.
They watched it for about 25 minutes before the big cat disappeared.
“Whatever it was that the cat had, it really wanted to get it to where it was going to eat it,” he said.
He’s since seen tracks of about “three or four cats” in the area, he said.
Watch Out, Coyotes
After watching Kaiser’s video, biologist Mark Elbroch said he thinks the mountain lion had a coyote carcass.
“I don’t know what else would be in that size range” in that habitat, he told Cowboy State Daily.
Mountain lions are usually associated with rugged mountains and thick forests. But they can succeed in open country, such as the Red Desert, especially when wolves aren’t around, said Elbroch, director of the mountain lion program for Panthera, a wild feline conservation organization.
When a mountain lion makes a meal out of a coyote, it’s usually the result of one of two scenarios, he said.
The first is if a mountain lion has already killed a big-game animal, and a coyote comes in hoping to scavenge the carcass.
If the coyote isn’t paying attention, it becomes a target of opportunity for the mountain lion, Elbroch said.
In other instances, mountain lions will actively hunt coyotes, he said.
On the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, a Panthera researchers once heard what sounded like a mountain lion killing a coyote about 100 yards away, Elbroch said. The researcher went to investigate, and got a photo of the mountain lion standing over a fresh coyote carcass.
The mountain lion’s preferred hunting method is “a well-timed ambush,” Elbroch said.
“Their hunting strategy is to walk silently and then sit and wait. And just to try to watch and listen,” he said.
The mountain lion will take whatever gets to within striking distance. And if that’s a coyote, then so be it, he said.
Mountain lions are masters of stalking prey, sometimes using as little as 8 inches of grass or brush for cover, Elbroch said.
“You’ll see them hugging the ground, just slithering around,” he said.
Living Dangerously
Camenzind said he didn’t see much evidence of mountain lions hunting coyotes near Jackson. But it doesn’t seem too strange that a mountain lion killed a coyote in the Red Desert.
“I’m not surprised. They (mountain lions and coyotes) run into each other a lot,” he said.
He noted that a trail camera on his property has captured images of mountain lions and coyotes, so both species are apparently thriving near Jackson.
Nature can be dangerous for any creature, and coyotes walk an especially fine line, as they compete with larger predators, such as mountain lions, bears and wolves, he said.
Sometimes, coyotes are lucky, and get a good meal without becoming a meal themselves, Camenzind said.
He recalled once watching a coyote and wolf feeding side-by-side on a big-game carcass.
“They didn’t seem to be that upset with each other,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
