Basin wiki · Animals
Coyote
Canis latrans
The animal this desk is named for. Common from town edges to open desert, and mostly a problem when people feed it.
Where you'll see it
Coyotes use every town in the basin and the open ground between them. Dawn and dusk movement along washes, dirt roads, and the edges of Highway 62 is ordinary. A coyote trotting through a Yucca Valley neighborhood at midday, pausing at trash day, is the food-conditioned version. The park’s mammal notes list coyotes among the animals that make a living here; they are not a visitor from somewhere wilder.
How to tell it
Adults are lanky, with a narrow muzzle, tall ears, and a bushy tail carried low. They are smaller than most people expect from cartoons and larger than a desert kit fox. Pups in spring and summer are regularly mistaken for abandoned dogs or for fox kits. California Fish and Wildlife’s guidance is to leave pups where they are: the adults are usually nearby, and a pup removed from the family does not learn how to live as a coyote.
Living next to them
Fish and Wildlife’s conflict page is the practical list. Bring small pets in at night and leash them on walks. Secure trash, recycling, and pet food. Fallen fruit and seed under a bird feeder feed rodents, and rodents feed coyotes. A bold animal should be hazed: stand tall, make noise, wave your arms, and let it leave. If a coyote makes contact, fight back and call 911. Do not feed one because it looks thin. A fed coyote loses the distance that keeps pets alive.
What they are doing out there
The ordinary diet is rodents, rabbits, fruit, and insects, which is useful on a homestead that would otherwise host more kangaroo rats in the engine bay and more jackrabbits in the garden. They also take unattended cats and small dogs. Night yips and howls are communication, not a pack closing in. Rabies is uncommon in California coyotes; the rule is still to avoid bites and saliva and to report an animal that seems sick or unusually fearless to animal control.