The coyotes in Alaska are also much larger than the scrawny appearing western US yotes that I've seen. It is very easy to mistake them for small wolves. We have coyotes pretty much all over the state except north of the Brooks Range. I've had them come through my yard here in Fairbanks and suspect a golden retriever that my neighbor had disappear was perhaps taken by coyotes. A lot of people say that the wolves keep the coyote population down but I see their tracks in the snow and on sand bars all over this area. I have never once though seen multiple sets of tracks together like you regularly do with wolves.
The article on the coyote attack that Bob Brown posted is well worth a read and clearly shows how ignorant their park rangers are of predatory animal behavior. Do they really think that killing two bad actor coyotes is going to make the trail suddenly safe? Like these are the only two coyotes in the area that are practicing predatory pack hunting techniques? I think they've been watching too many Wiley Coyote cartoons and need to study up on animal behavior in the real world. We had a similar thing happen in Alaska this past spring. Two bear attack deaths in two days, one a young lady geologist in a remote area with a partner, neither of which had a gun, and a young kid on a trail hike near Anchorage. The articles afterwards went on and on about "we're not sure why these bears did what they did".... Wake up idiots. It was a late spring so when the bears came out of hibernation in a very hungry mood there was none of the regular vegetation they eat at that time and they were desperate for food. Pretty much anything that moves is potential food for a bear, including humans. Both of these incidents were purely hunger-driven predatory attacks. There's not much could be changed on the kid that got killed other than to NOT have him on a trail alone. The two lady geologists who got attacked were young and inexperienced and had only bear spray, which does not work in predatory attacks. Any experienced geologist knows to carry a gun early in the season... Had they had a gun they knew how to use it would have been a non-event that would have lasted no more than a few minutes. The bear came and went three times before killing one of them. General protocol for experienced field workers is that you chase them away once; if they come back and are aggressive you shoot to kill and you never ever waste ammo on shots to just scare them away, as that has been well proven to be a total waste of powder. They emptied their bear spray to no effect - what a surprises. I did that once also, and on a bear that was full of blueberries and could not have been at all hungry; my Winchester .45-90 ended up solving that problem in our favor. The articles on both of these incidents last spring pretty much blamed everything but hunger, despite the finding that the bear that killed the lady geo had a totally empty stomach. I tell you the ignorance is mind boggling. This kind of thing is a very hot button issue for me because it was so easily preventable. Ok, I'm done ranting....
