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Marshall P. Jonas
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pounds, was taken to the Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries headquarters in Richmond, where the identification was confirmed. It was then stuffed and put on public display.
Within six months, Bangston learned of a second animal near Sperryville. Surprisingly, it was another decade before coyotes were documented in Shenandoah National Park.
“We first started getting reports of coyotes in the park in 1994,” said Park Biologist Jim Atkinson. “In a project designed to detect the presence of mountain lions and other predators, in 1997 we set up a series of camera stations, baited with road-killed deer. We got confirmation of coyotes almost immediately.”
However, as the study went on, coyotes demonstrated their legendary wariness and became very difficult to photograph. Atkinson and his colleagues eventually added a second camera, rigged to go off if the coyote attempted to avoid the first one. They continued to get abundant evidence of bobcats and bears, but no mountain Hons. (Does that mean there are no mountain Hons in the park? Not necessarily - but that’s a story for another column).
The wariness which the park coy. otes showed has been one of the animal’s keys to success in the eastern states, along with its varied diet. Although technically carnivores, coyotes will in fact eat anything from fawns and rodents to insects, fruit, and garbage. Basically, a coyote will eat anything that a raccoon will eat - and occasionally they eat the raccoons themselves! They also have been reported to eat domestic cats—another
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