The coyote (Canis latrans) is an adaptable North American canid that thrives across diverse landscapes, including urban areas. This species is an opportunistic feeder whose success is tied to consuming nearly any available food source. This adaptability prompts questions about the limits of their diet, including whether they resort to eating members of their own kind. The answer is a complex behavioral response driven by extreme environmental pressures.
The Coyote’s Standard Diet
Coyotes are classified as omnivores, meaning they consume both animal and plant matter, but their diet leans heavily toward meat. Their feeding strategy is highly opportunistic, relying on both skillful predation and scavenging. They primarily hunt small mammals, with rodents like mice and voles, as well as rabbits, forming a significant portion of their prey base.
Their diet expands seasonally to include insects, wild fruits, berries, and nuts. As efficient scavengers, coyotes regularly consume carrion, such as the remains of deer or livestock. In human-dominated environments, they readily incorporate unsecured garbage and pet food, highlighting their ability to exploit any caloric opportunity.
The Direct Answer: When Coyotes Consume Conspecifics
Yes, coyotes can and do consume dead coyotes, but this behavior is highly situational and distinct from their normal feeding habits. This consumption falls into two main categories: necrophagy, which is the scavenging of a body, and true cannibalism, which involves killing a conspecific for consumption. The primary drivers for this extreme behavior are resource scarcity, territorial conflict, and infanticide.
Instances of necrophagy are most likely to occur under conditions of extreme starvation, such as during severe winter months or prolonged drought when primary prey populations crash. The immense pressure of survival can override the natural instinct to avoid eating one’s own species, turning a dead conspecific into a desperate source of protein and fat. In these situations, the consumption is purely a survival mechanism to obtain calories.
Cannibalism is often linked to social dynamics, particularly territorial disputes. Coyotes are intensely territorial, and fatal fights between rival packs or transient individuals are common. A victorious individual or pack may consume the body of a killed intruder, a behavior known as conspecific strife, which eliminates a rival and exploits a sudden, high-calorie resource.
Infanticide, the killing of young, is a documented form of conspecific consumption, often observed as filial cannibalism. While rare, parents or dominant pack members may kill and consume pups, usually those that are sick, weak, or otherwise unlikely to survive. This behavior is thought to be a resource-management strategy, recovering energy and protein from a doomed individual to ensure the survival of the healthier remaining littermates.
Why This Behavior is Rare in Healthy Populations
Despite their opportunistic nature, the consumption of conspecifics is uncommon in coyote populations with stable access to food. A primary inhibitor is the risk of disease transmission.
Consuming a dead or dying animal, especially one from the same species, dramatically increases the likelihood of ingesting pathogens. Coyotes are susceptible to a range of contagious diseases and parasites, including rabies, sarcoptic mange, and various internal parasites. An individual that dies from illness is a biological hazard, and a healthy coyote’s natural avoidance of a diseased carcass is a strong evolutionary defense. This risk is amplified because a dead conspecific is more likely to have succumbed to a communicable illness than a healthy prey animal.
The social structure of coyotes, which involves cooperative raising of young and the maintenance of family groups, generally discourages cannibalism. Widespread conspecific predation would destabilize the pack and increase internal conflict. Unless faced with a dire threat to their immediate survival, the biological cost and social disruption of eating one’s own kind outweigh the potential nutritional benefit.