Reproductive Activity in an Old-Age Coyote in Southeastern Colorado

Abstract

Old ages reported for wild coyotes (Canis latrans) were 13.5 years old for a male (Knowlton, 1972; Nellis and Keith, 1976) and 14.5 years old for a female (Knowlton, 1972). No information was available on the past history of these wild coyotes. I documented a 15.4-year-old male coyote in southeastern Colorado which, on the basis of behavioral activity, appeared to be reproductively active when 11.6 to 12.8 years of age. On 9 November 1983, a 12.0-kg male coyote was captured with a steel leg-hold trap in Lockwood Canyon on the U.S. Army Pifion Canyon Maneuver Site, Las Animas Co., Colorado. Age at capture was estimated by tooth wear (Gier, 1968) to be > 8 years. From 10 November 1983 to 8 November 1985, a total of 182 radio locations of the coyote were collected. The last day of radio contact was 8 November 1985. Homerange size, as estimated by the minimum perimeter polygon method (Mohr, 1947), was 7.7 and 8.2 km2 for 1984 and 1985, respectively. On 21 September 1987, the coyote was shot by a rancher 7.7 km outside the boundary of its known home range. The carcass was recovered; the lower jaw was boiled for 1 h to remove a canine tooth which was sent to a commercial toothprocessing laboratory (Matson's Laboratory, Milltown, Montana) for sectioning and cementum analysis (Linhart and Knowlton, 1967). Age analysis showed the coyote was 15.4 years old at the time of death. Matson's Laboratory gave the age estimate an accuracy rating of A, their highest rating with an associated error of ? 1 year. While cementum analysis may have some inaccuracies (Allen and Kohn, 1976; Nellis et al., 1978; Roberts, 1978), previously reported ages were also aged by cementum analysis and were thus subject to the same errors.