The Coyote Paradox

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0:00I’m going to explain that we shouldn’t be trying to exterminate coyotes because

0:04doing that actually makes more of them. Coyote packs tend to be like small families.

0:09And in a typical pack of six or so, only the dominant female tends to produce pups. The

0:14rest of the pack are often the equivalent of the alpha’s teenage children. They are often mature,

0:18but still hang around and hunt with their parents. And in this family pack, the younger

0:22females don’t have their own pups. Instead, the subordinate females go through bizarre,

0:27“fake pregnancies” every breeding season in which they go through all the stages of pregnancy, but

0:32they don't actually produce pups. They don’t even need to have mated to do this. And it’s odd, but

0:38it does serve a purpose – it likely primes them to act maternally toward their new brothers and

0:42sisters, which probably increases group cohesion. But when the dominant female dies and the pack

0:48scatters, her daughters all go out, find mates, and start getting pregnant, for real this time.

0:53And then they become the dominant females of their own, new packs. And get this: younger females tend

0:58to have litters that are double the size of the older alphas. So instead of reducing the number

1:02of coyotes, a hunter can actually increase the number of coyotes. Because fighting coyotes is

1:08like fighting the mythological hydra – every coyote you kill gets replaced by several more.

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