The coyote is one of the most-recorded mammals in Oregon’s atlas, its 2,924 records split between two very different Oregons: the juniper and sagebrush country east of the Cascades around Deschutes and Jefferson counties, and the wet, urbanized west side, where Multnomah and Washington counties post tallies nearly as high.
At home on both sides of the Cascades
Deschutes National Forest, Crooked River National Grassland, and the Oregon Badlands Wilderness Area anchor the dry-side record, while Sauvie Island Wildlife Area and Siuslaw National Forest carry the coast and valley side. A diet of rodents, rabbits, carrion, and seasonal fruit and insects lets the same species work high desert, clearcut, and city greenway without changing much about how it lives.
No quiet season
Counts hold remarkably even across the calendar, dipping only slightly in early fall. Coyotes neither hibernate nor migrate: pairs breed in late winter, pups leave the den by early summer, and families travel together until the young disperse in autumn. For all that abundance, most Oregonians still meet the local coyotes as sound rather than sight, a dusk chorus more often than an animal in the open.
Status in Oregon
NatureServe ranks the coyote S5, Secure, in Oregon, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
