Coyotes possess remarkable adaptability, allowing them to thrive across diverse and often harsh environments. The winter season presents a significant challenge, as resources become scarce and the energetic demands for maintaining body temperature increase. To survive the cold months, coyotes must shift their foraging strategies. This dietary shift centers on maximizing calorie intake through persistent small-prey hunting, opportunistic scavenging, and, when necessary, collaborative attacks on larger animals.
Primary Small Mammal Prey and Foraging
Small mammals remain a consistent food source throughout the winter. Prey like voles, shrews, and deer mice do not hibernate, instead remaining active in the subnivean zone, the insulated space between the ground and the snowpack. Lagomorphs, such as cottontail rabbits and hares, also become more prominent in the winter diet.
The primary hunting technique for securing these hidden rodents is known as “mousing.” The coyote listens intently for movement beneath the snow before executing a high, vertical leap and pouncing forcefully to collapse the snowpack and pin the prey. This method requires high energy output and becomes challenging when the snow is deep or develops a hard, icy crust. The difficulty in securing small, low-calorie meals drives the need to supplement the diet with other sources.
Critical Role of Scavenging and Carrion
When active hunting becomes energetically inefficient, opportunistic feeding on carrion is a defining element of winter survival. Finding already-dead animals is often more reliable than unpredictable small-prey hunting. Scavenged meat, particularly from ungulates like white-tailed deer, can constitute a significant portion of a coyote’s diet. Studies show that the vast majority of deer consumed are found as carrion rather than actively hunted.
Sources of carrion are varied and include animals that succumbed to winter stress, died from vehicle collisions, or were left as gut piles by human hunters. The search for these large, high-calorie meals is often aided by avian scavengers like ravens, who alert coyotes to a carcass’s location from the air. This reliance on easily accessible, calorie-dense food also draws coyotes closer to human development. This leads to increased consumption of human-related food waste, such as accessible trash or pet food left outdoors.
Targeting Larger Prey and Livestock
As the season progresses and deep snow restricts the movement of large animals, coyotes may shift toward targeting larger prey. They focus attention on vulnerable ungulates, primarily deer weakened by malnutrition, injury, or severe weather conditions. Healthy adult deer are generally too formidable to be taken down by a single coyote, making the young, old, and sick the most susceptible to attack.
Successful predation on larger animals usually requires cooperative hunting, where family groups or packs work together to exhaust and bring down the target. This cooperative effort secures a high-calorie payoff that sustains the group for several days. Proximity to human development also means that livestock and domestic animals become targets of opportunity. Young calves, lambs, and backyard poultry are particularly vulnerable due to their relative ease of capture compared to wild prey.