Coyotes turn up in 506 Alabama records spread across 61 counties, from Little River Canyon National Preserve on the Lookout Mountain plateau south through Conecuh National Forest’s longleaf pinelands and out to Dauphin Island at the mouth of Mobile Bay. It is a map without a blank quarter, fitting for one of the most adaptable carnivores on the continent.
At home from the mountains to the coast
A coyote lives on what the ground offers, rodents, rabbits, insects, fruit, and carrion, so Alabama’s mix of hardwood ridges, pine savanna, farm edges, and coastal scrub all qualifies as habitat. Records from Bankhead National Forest, Chewacla State Park, and the Wehle Nature Preserve show the same pattern as the city-edge counties around Huntsville and Birmingham: the animal uses cover and travels edges, and most people who share ground with one never see it. A burst of yips after dark or narrow tracks on a sandy road is the usual evidence.
Two pulses in the year
Alabama reports crest twice, in February and again in November. February sits in the breeding season, when pairs den up and answer each other with group howls that carry far on cool nights. November’s rise matches fall dispersal, when the year’s grown pups leave their parents’ range and strike out across unfamiliar country, crossing roads and open ground they would avoid the rest of the year.
Status in Alabama
NatureServe ranks the coyote S5, Secure, in Alabama, and the species is native to its Alabama range. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
