Coyote intelligence level by location.

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OKRattler

Well-known member
This may sound ridiculous but I figured I'd get everyone's opinion on the subject. There are coyote hunters from all walks of life on this forum. From North to South, East to West and everything in between. For those who have been fortunate enough to have hunted coyotes in multiple States, have you noticed a region where coyotes seemed to be more intelligent than in others?

I know most will say a coyote is a coyote across the board. But there's got to be other reasons why coyotes do what they do depending on their environment and the conditions in which they thrive in.

I've hunted in coyotes in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. And honestly the coyotes I've hunted in Central Texas seemed to be a lot more leary and cautious than any Oklahoma or Kansas coyotes I've seen. There are exceptions to that but for the most part they seem more on edge down there. But hunting pressure may or may not be a big part of that. I really couldn't say.

What's y'all's opinion on this?
 
It's awful strange to me that I've noticed the very thing you'd expect in States with more public ground where people have more access to hunt. Texas is pretty much all privately owned property. Very little public land. But yet I've seen more coyotes hang up or flat out ignore the call in parts of Texas than anywhere in Oklahoma or Kansas. I just find it odd. You'd think those coyotes would rush right in to a call where coyotes in States where they're more likely to hear a call and have a bad experience would be the more cautious ones. I never have quite been able to figure that out.

But I guess that's not abnormal. There's no set rules or absolutes when it comes to coyotes. Some things they do just don't make sense.
 
I think it's as simple as you've described. The more interactions they have with people who want to kill them, the harder they are to kill. The population density of both humans and coyotes in an area seem to prove out.
 
Don't forget prey availability along with suitable habitat with competing packs.

I've chased them from the Rockies to the big woods of the east and IMO eastern coyote success is much much lower than western states due to many reasons but I don't think it's an intelligence thing, it's in interaction between humans thing predominantly.
 
Also I understand that coyote density has a lot to do with it as well. I don't know because I haven't hunted those States where calling in a coyote is a rare thing. So it would obviously be extremely hard to say exactly what their behavior is like because there would be significantly less encounters with those animals in those areas. You'd have to call many, many coyotes in a place where even a hand full is a rarity to get a definitive answer to that question I would guess.

So in a way I really asked a loaded question. Or at least looking at it from that point of view it seems like a loaded question. Because are coyotes smarter in those areas or are there just less coyotes? Take the same person who may call 3 a season in an area and put them in another and they may call up 50 in a season. I don't have any doubt that very thing could happen.
 
OKRattler said:
Also I understand that coyote density has a lot to do with it as well. I don't know because I haven't hunted those States where calling in a coyote is a rare thing. So it would obviously be extremely hard to say exactly what their behavior is like because there would be significantly less encounters with those animals in those areas. You'd have to call many, many coyotes in a place where even a hand full is a rarity to get a definitive answer to that question I would guess.

So in a way I really asked a loaded question. Or at least looking at it from that point of view it seems like a loaded question. Because are coyotes smarter in those areas or are there just less coyotes? Take the same person who may call 3 a season in an area and put them in another and they may call up 50 in a season. I don't have any doubt that very thing could happen.
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I live in TN, but I hunt all over the country. I can hunt relentlessly here at home, (TN, MS, AL), and if I hunt 100 days a year, hard, I can kill 40-50 coyotes a year. I can go to New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, and if I catch it right, I can kill that many in a week. The densities are much higher in those states, but the coyotes are also much easier to call. Western coyotes are in competition for food, while eastern coyotes aren't coming in from 800y away to eat a rabbit. They would have to trip over 3 of them on the way there. And then there is the terrain. Western coyotes don't mind as much exposing themselves to openings in the daylight, because they live mostly in the open, but most southern coyotes aren't coming into an open field in the daylight, no matter what.
 
I'm from MI. I've only coyote hunted here, but went to OK on a hog hunt a couple years ago. I saw more coyotes in OK in the 3 days I was there than I'll see in a year or 2 in MI. I personally don't feel like it's an intelligence level difference as much as it is coyote density. They seem "dumb" when you see one standing at the edge of the road every mile or 2, but I just think there's just that many more coyotes in that state than there is in MI. When I do get a reaction when calling, they almost always are charging the call. It's usually only 1 or 2, and just doesn't happen as often.
 
I like going west from plowed row crop ground, to short grass habitat. Coyote show more confidence and prey drive. Any grass around here standing in the winter is giant blue stem or switch grass(thigh to waist+ high on me) really no way to shoot in/thru either with a rifle. At night when snow is minimal (this year) mice are common, coyote fill their bellies. That changes when we have snowshoe conditions, mice very difficult to catch.
 
I tend to think it is pressure that educates them. I'm originally from WI at least one week a year there are 500,000 hunters spread across the state and nearly everyone will kill or at least shoot at any coyote they see. Out west where I live now you would never know there was a deer season, most of the deer here occupy a small percentage of the same ground as coyotes so they don't get the pressure or experience they do in the east. When you hunt areas nobody else hunts they can seem pretty dumb.
 
I am sure that the coyote density make a big difference in how easy it is to call in coyotes. So far from October 2024 through February 12th pf 2025 it has been kind of slow for the amount of coyotes that we have in this area.

In the spring of 2023 and 2024 we got plenty or rain so the rabbits, birds, rats, mice and squirrel populations have been very high so this is the second year in a row that we have had lots of coyotes.

The most coyotes that we have taken in 1 day in the last 4 months is 4 coyotes. Normally on the ranches we are hunting on we have some days that we kill 5 to 8 coyotes in a day. I have noticed that some of the coyotes that we have killed are at least 5 to 10 pounds heavier than on normal years.

So now I am wondering if the coyotes are not as hungry as in years past because there is so many critters available for them to eat.

I have seen three different separate years of drought that there was very few critters for the coyotes to eat. Those 3 different years the coyotes were eating Juniper berries and their scat was full of Juniper berries and some grapes and carrots.

Those 3 years that the coyotes were not eating meat, were 3 of the best years of coyote calling I have ever seen. It was pretty easy to see that coyotes that were full of Juniper berries preferred to eat rabbits, rats, mice, squirrels and birds.

I am very lucky and get to hunt coyotes on 5 different big ranches that nobody else is calling coyotes on. On all of these ranches it is much harder to call in coyotes on my 4th and 5th time calling them than it is the 1st, 2nd and 3rd time that I call on them.

It doesn't take much coyote calling pressure in wide open country to educate the coyotes.
 
wildlife.org

TWS Researchers Track Metropolitan Coyote Habits - The Wildlife Society

Like many young people, she had to find ways to adapt to modern times. She grew up around the Schaumburg, Ill. suburb near the Chicago O’Hare International Airport in the...
wildlife.org wildlife.org

Interesting article about a coyote that was collared and tracked around Ohare Airport in Illinois. The coyote made it to 15yo before dying of natural causes.

Back to the OP, I think the average intelligence level is the same, but each coyote adapts to it's location, as many have pointed out. As in humans, I'm positive there are 'super-smart' coyotes out there, and if you have hunted the same properties for some time, you have probably run into one or two.
 
Good perspectives fellas. I can’t contribute because I have only hunted here in PA and a few nights in Illinois.
I have bowhunted from 2 to 6 weeks in Ohio from 93 to 98 then Illinois from 99 to 2022 and can say WITHOUT ANY HESITATION that there were/are a lot more coyotes in those areas l hunted than there is in the 4 counties l hunt here in SW PA.
 
I’ll play Devils advocate…could we all have the same densities and it’s all terrain driven?
Who’s to say us guys in the East aren’t calling the same amount of coyotes, except we can’t take 250-500yd shots on them because we can’t see 250-500yds?
I ponder that thought every blank stand. Was there a coyote there that just didn’t commit or get to where he could see but I couldn’t and he just didn’t come in?
I’m reading about y’all guys seeing them 1000yds or more away. Only way I could see that far would be with a drone and then it better have thermal.
I do think that down here coyotes can hear you from a great distance. But, unless you’re in their bubble (150yds or less) they ain’t coming. I swear I can tell by their responses whether it’s a “I’m coming to check you out” or it’s an “I hear you but just don’t care.” Just the other night a group answered and I told my son forget it, they ain’t coming. What we “should’ve” done was pack it up and make a move closer. What we did, was sit there and call for the next 45min praying every deer we saw would morph into a coyote.
I’m still learning, but if they ain’t charging in within the first 10min, your odds are pretty slim that they’re even coming at all. I have yet to see a coyote come in and stop and look, it’s hard charging all the way and generally pretty quick.
 
Spurchaser, I'm not sure why I never thought of this but all the ones I have called in came within the first 10 min. I have never had one come in later, yet I have stood out in the cold for up to an hour at a time...lol
 
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