How Close Do Wolves and Coyotes Stay? A Worldwide Study of Canid Pairs

How much time do members of a wolf pack or a coyote family actually spend together? A study published in Ecology in 2024, shared by the National Park Service, set out to answer that across the genus Canis.

What the study measured

The researchers followed 574 individual animals from six Canis species, in 15 countries on four continents, with GPS collars. Most of the data came from coyotes and three kinds of wolves: gray wolves, eastern wolves and red wolves. The study covered 2003 to 2019.

They called the time two members of the same group spent near each other cohesion. A pair counted as together at a given GPS fix if the two animals were within 100 m of each other.

What they found

Pairs differ enormously. Some pairs were close for as little as 5% of their time; others were together 100% of the time. That spread showed up between species and between pairs of the same species.

Wolves stick together more than coyotes. Across species, wolves were the more cohesive. Within a group, breeding pairs were the most cohesive of all.

Bigger packs, looser pairs. Pairs of wolves in larger groups spent less time together, especially where small prey such as beavers was plentiful. A lone animal can hunt small prey, and one catch feeds only one or a few animals. Large prey is easier for a group to bring down and can feed many pack members, so they can stay together and still eat.

The seasons matter. Cohesion was generally highest in winter, when hunting together pays most. It was lower in summer, for two reasons:

• small prey, such as young hoofed animals, is available;
• during breeding and pup-rearing, pack members often split up, some guarding the pups while others hunt to feed themselves and the young.

People and climate loosen the bonds. Wolves and coyotes were less cohesive in winter where people had changed the landscape more, and in times of greater climate variability.

Why it matters

The authors conclude that cohesion is a highly flexible part of social life: individuals adjust it to food, competition within the group and human disturbance. They argue that studying it can help explain why animals cooperate, and that the loss of cohesion under human pressure and climate change is a challenge for conserving social top predators.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Cohesion among canids: Insights into social behavior", Denali National Park and Preserve and Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/insights-canid-social-groups.htm
• Benson, J., D. Keiter, P. Mahoney, B. Allen, L. Allen, B. L. Borg, … K. Joly, … M. Sorum, et al., "Intrinsic and environmental drivers of pairwise cohesion in wild Canis social groups", Ecology, 2024, e4492. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4492
• The study's two figures, a world map of the study animals and a chart of wolf and coyote cohesion, come from the journal article and are not reproduced here.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.