Coyotes and vultures are both common sights across the North American landscape, each playing a distinct role in the local ecology. The coyote, a highly adaptable canid, is a predator and scavenger that successfully occupies diverse habitats. Vultures, on the other hand, are specialized avian scavengers, often noticed soaring high above or congregating around a recent death. Understanding the relationship between these two animals requires recognizing the specific feeding strategies and physical traits that govern their interaction. This relationship is not one of predator and prey, but rather one of an eventual food source and a specialized consumer in the vast natural clean-up crew.
Vultures are Scavengers, Not Predators
Vultures do not hunt or kill healthy coyotes, as they are physically unequipped for the aggressive demands of predation. Their feet are adapted for perching and walking on the ground, featuring long toes with blunted talons that lack the powerful grip and sharp curvature of a true raptor’s feet. These features make it impossible for a vulture to effectively grasp, subdue, and kill a resilient mammal like a coyote.
Vultures possess a strong, hooked beak, but this is designed for tearing into tough hides and muscle of already deceased animals, not for dispatching live prey. The role of a vulture is to consume carrion, meaning they only feed on a coyote after it has died from other causes. While Black Vultures will occasionally prey on very small, incapacitated, or sick animals, even these instances are rare. A healthy, mature coyote presents too great a risk and requires too much energy for a vulture to consider as a meal to be hunted.
The Primary Diet of Vultures
The vulture’s diet centers almost entirely on carrion, positioning them as nature’s primary recycler of dead animals. This scavenging lifestyle provides a substantial ecological service by removing decaying carcasses from the environment.
Vultures have evolved an exceptionally strong digestive system capable of neutralizing pathogens that would be deadly to most other animals. Their highly acidic stomach kills dangerous bacteria, such as those that cause anthrax or botulism, which are often present in rotting flesh. Common food sources include roadkill, deceased livestock, and the remains of animals killed by other predators. The ability to consume this often-toxic food source is a highly specialized adaptation.
How Coyotes Become Vulture Food
Coyotes, despite being adaptable predators, face numerous threats that can lead to their death and subsequent availability as carrion. Human-related factors are often the most significant cause of coyote mortality. Vehicle collisions, particularly in areas with high human development, are a frequent source of death. Additionally, human-related activities like hunting and trapping account for a large percentage of coyote deaths.
Natural causes also contribute to the availability of coyote carcasses for vultures. Coyotes are susceptible to various diseases, including canine distemper, parvovirus, and mange, which can be fatal. Predation by larger carnivores, such as mountain lions or wolves, can also result in a carcass for vultures, though this is less frequent. Vultures will often wait for a large carcass, like a coyote, to be opened up by another scavenger or for decomposition to begin, as this makes the tough hide easier to access.
Vulture Species and Range Overlap
The two most common species of New World vultures in North America are the Turkey Vulture and the Black Vulture, and their distinct foraging methods impact how they find a coyote carcass. Turkey Vultures possess an extraordinary sense of smell, an uncommon trait in birds, which allows them to detect the gases produced by decaying flesh from great distances. They are often the first to arrive at a newly deceased animal, even if it is hidden beneath a dense forest canopy.
Black Vultures, conversely, primarily rely on their keen eyesight to locate carrion. They frequently observe the behavior of Turkey Vultures, using their red-headed cousins as an aerial guide to a meal. Once a carcass is located, Black Vultures, which are more aggressive and social, will often descend in groups and displace the more solitary Turkey Vultures from the feeding site. The ranges of both vulture species overlap significantly with coyote populations across much of the United States.