Coyote Voices: Decoding Howls, Yips, Barks, and More

Coyote Howls, Yips, and Other Vocalizations: A Rich Palette of Sounds and Situations

For years, I’ve been captivated by coyote communication, alongside their intricate family dynamics and social interactions. My insights come from over a decade of observing and documenting coyotes in their natural habitats. Coyote communication is a nuanced affair, often relying on subtle cues like eye contact, facial expressions, and body language. While not as incessantly vocal as humans, coyotes are far from silent creatures – they simply choose their moments.

To help you appreciate their vocal diversity, I’ve included several videos showcasing their sounds. By carefully examining the context of each vocalization and understanding the roles and relationships within a coyote family, we can decipher the reasons behind their calls and their meanings for other coyotes. While their sounds don’t constitute a formal “language” in the human sense, they are powerful emotional expressions – “emotings” – readily understood by fellow coyotes and by attentive observers in their environment. Coyotes live deeply within their families, and their vocalizations primarily serve these internal family affairs, which are far more central to their lives than external events. Each coyote, and by extension each coyote family, brings its own unique flavor to these vocal themes.

Yipping, howling, and other coyote vocalizations can occur at any time, day or night, reflecting their diurnal nature – they are active across the 24-hour cycle. You might wonder, how far can a coyote howl travel? I explored this in a previous post – just click the link to delve into it. Interestingly, in my extensive observations, I’ve never witnessed coyotes howling aimlessly, nor have I heard howls immediately before or after a hunt. Yips and howls don’t seem to signal an impending attack or celebrate a kill. Coyote “songs,” however, can be quite lengthy, sometimes stretching for 20 minutes or more.

Within their melodic yips and howls, coyotes exhibit a remarkable range of tones, pitches, modulations, and inflections – sometimes incorporating warbles, lilts, crescendos, and trills. They utilize their mouths, lips, and tongues, in addition to their vocal cords, to achieve this sonic complexity. The unique combinations of patterns, durations, and articulations can create signature howls, distinct to individual coyotes. Just as we recognize voices over the phone, coyotes can identify each other by their howls. Among the coyotes I’ve studied, I can often discern who is howling in the distance simply by recognizing their individual vocal patterns.

Our human vocabulary for coyote sounds is limited. Their vocalizations exist on a continuum, often blending seamlessly, making it challenging to categorize them into precise, discrete terms. Consider the Inuit languages, which have dozens of words for snow, reflecting nuances vital to their environment. Similarly, our snow vocabulary—powder, icy, slush—is tailored to our needs. For coyotes, barks, growls, howls, and yips are just the tip of the iceberg. Context is paramount – it dictates the meaning of any coyote vocalization.

So, why do coyotes yip, bark, or howl? What messages do they convey verbally, remembering that their primary communication is often silent body language? They express warnings, greetings, happiness, joy, anger, distress, disapproval, dislike, pain, and location, among other things, through sound. I’ve observed a father coyote initiate yipping, seemingly calling his family, and only two pups nearby responded, running to him and joining in a yipping chorus. Other family members, further away, did not participate.

My experience is limited when it comes to vocal communication between different coyote families. I know they engage in vocal challenges and responses, sometimes escalating to physical fights. I’ve witnessed the aftermath of such encounters but haven’t directly heard the vocal exchanges. When I do, I will certainly share it. If you have observed or heard this, please share your experiences in the comments!

General Summary of Coyote Sounds:

• Raspy Sounds: Growls, snarls, hisses, and barks (recordings 1, 2, 3). These communicate upset, anger, or serve as warnings. High-pitched, urgent sounds also fall into this “unhappy” category.
• Sing-songy, Friendly Sounds: Howls, yips, whines, and squeals (recordings 4, 5, 6). These smoother, higher-pitched sounds generally indicate friendliness, happiness, or contentment.
• Lip and Tongue Modulations: Allow for a wide variety of nuanced sounds.
• Sound Amplification: Their vocal range and combinations can make a few coyotes sound like many.
• Individual Howl Signatures: Unique howl patterns allow for individual coyote identification, even at a distance.
• No Howling at Kills: Coyotes do not typically howl after a successful hunt.

Let’s explore some specific examples and situations to better understand coyote vocalizations, focusing on three common communications you are likely to encounter. Remember, these are generalizations, and coyote communication is full of variations.

1. Howling/Yipping in Response to Sirens: Often involving one or more coyotes, the chorus can sound much larger than it is due to the varied sounds and dissonances. Why sirens trigger howls is speculative, but the likely explanation is mimicry. Sirens may sound like distant coyotes to them – a friend from India once mistook sirens here for jackals in Delhi. Responding to sirens, like responding to distant coyotes, may be a way to express unity with neighboring coyotes within earshot and to reinforce territorial boundaries – a form of peaceful coexistence through vocal declaration.

2. Social Communication: Recordings #8 and #9, while sounding initially harsh due to microphone proximity, reveal peaceful communication with gentle intentions. Occurring before evening gatherings, these vocalizations likely serve as “I’m ready,” or “I’m coming,” signals, confirming proximity and anticipation of social activity. Beyond immediate context, this communication reinforces pair bonds, well-being, and perhaps subtly asserts territorial ownership to more distant coyotes, as mentioned above.

I’ve witnessed a father coyote calling out (no sirens involved), prompting two yearling pups to respond vocally and run towards him. Why only these two out of five? Could howling function as a family “roll call”? It seems unlikely, as not all family members always participate. Questions often outnumber answers in coyote behavior! A contact once reported four hours of continuous howling, possibly a young coyote calling for a mother lost to traffic or hunting. A heartbreaking prospect.

3. Distressed Howling and Barking Due to Intrusive Dogs: This intense barking is as frequent as siren-response howling in observed parks. Distress howls and yips triggered by dog chases are easily recognized by their anguished tone. An unusual example is a lone three-year-old coyote I’ve studied. She consistently “screams” at and follows a specific dog who used to chase her, but no other dogs. This dog is now always leashed, and the coyote seems aware of this restraint. This behavior has persisted for years. It appears to be a coyote asserting herself and her territory against a past harasser, even with the dog’s owner present and the dog physically larger.

Initially, I thought post-dog-chase barking served as a warning to family members. However, observations contradicted this. A mother coyote once ignored a pup’s barking nearby, triggered by a dog, even though she had previously defended pups from dogs she deemed dangerous. In another instance, a pup ignored the mother’s distant distress bark while continuing to hunt. These observations revealed that vocalizations are often primarily emotive responses, not necessarily alarms. Coyotes are profoundly feeling animals, a point echoed by Carl Safina.

EXAMPLES AND SITUATIONS FROM FIELDWORK:

1), 2), 3) Coyote distress yelps caused by a dog intrusion. These intense vocalizations express anguish and upset. The first two videos demonstrate identical responses from different coyotes in similar situations, highlighting individual variations in communication.

3b) A nighttime encounter where a pregnant female approached my leashed dog and screamed at point-blank range, a startling experience.

4), 5), 5a), 5b) Siren responses. High-pitched yips can resemble puppy sounds but are adult vocalizations. Grunts, barks, and gnarls are often interwoven. Video 5 shows a distant coyote baying in response. 5c shows two recently bonded coyotes howling to sirens in unison.

6. Soulful baying as a less common siren response, blending into back-and-forth communication with another coyote.

7), 8) A family siren response morphing into shorter greeting yips during a rendezvous.

9. A four-month-old pup responding to its family from a distance.

10), 11) Long-distance social communication between a mated pair. The first during a calm afternoon (details above under “social communication”). The second more intense at night, with a foreground male barking and a more agitated female in the distance.

12), 13), 14), 14a), 14b) Hisses and growls. Video 12: soft anger hisses/growls meaning “get away.” Video 13: hissing and “almost” growling from Mom to a misbehaving pup. Video 14: female trying to dominate her mate (preventing pup grooming), who moves away. Video 14a: Dad reminding a 10-month-old pup of his dominance (1:24-1:48).

15. Growling and snarling accompany shoving and biting during discipline, with pup squeals of pain.

16. Family siren response transitioning to greetings and rank confirmations. A youngster growls disruptively, then is threatened by two others, squealing preventatively to avoid bites.

17), 18) Mouth and lip movements, and tongue use, in coyote vocalizations are demonstrated.

19. Indecisive wavering about howling, with grunting preceding barking, as if the coyote is deciding whether to vocalize.

20. Multi-tasking coyote: steals a rat, plays with it, then howls to sirens with the rat in its mouth before prioritizing burying the rat, then abandoning it for family activities.

21), 22) Relaxed howling. Video 21: a female responding to her mate’s call while lying down, with a single high-pitched tone versus his barking. Video 22: rank issues and annoyance expressed with howling.

23. A coyote “tongue-lashing” a dog that chased her long ago, demonstrating anger and fear in posture and vocalization, following the dog and owner, then watching them depart.

24. Grunting with displeasure.

25. Lugubrious howl after frantic territory sniffing, indicating anger and scent-marking. An intruder female was spotted the next day, suggesting a warning or expression of discontent.

26a) Audio recording of evening social communication, sounding conversational, recorded by Alicia Pollak.

26b) A male coyote passes through, looks back for a female, then continues. The female appears, sniffs, waits, and calls out, “Are you coming? Where are you?”. He and the family respond.

27. Mother and father coyote with eight-month-old offspring. Mother vocalizing a desire to be left alone, nipping at her mate. Youngsters and father comply.

28. Mellow, gentle, sweet vocalizations to a new companion nearby, contrasting with agitated distress calls from dog chases.

29. Extended family conversation session at 6 am after sirens, possibly involving a new coyote family in the territory.

30. Upset yearling coyote calling out to absent family, urgency in the unanswered call.

31. Barking as the sole vocalization. A female upset at an intruder, barking for over two minutes, then joined by siblings offering support.

32. Mellow, mild, sweet vocalizations to a new, nearby mate.

33. High-pitched, soft gurgling/warbling vocalizations of eight-month-old pups.

34. Warbling sounds by a coyote after distant sirens (courtesy Trish Tenhoeve).

35. Three 20-month-old siblings “concert” after sirens (courtesy D. Samas).

36. Three 20-month-old siblings “concert” during evening rendezvous, no sirens (courtesy D. Samas).

37. “Siren Chatterings”: family of four responding to sirens with nuanced individual vocalizations.

38. Vocalizations during pup feeding.

38a) Dad calls pup to come for a rat, a correction from a previous interpretation of distress.

39. Discipline/ostracizing vocalizations, with youngster whining.

40. Fight between alpha female and male.

41. Upset vs. content vocalizations between mated pair.

42. Rendezvous sounds (grunts, growls, high-pitched sounds).

43. Grunts of a seven-month-old pup not escalating to a howl.

44. Parental disciplinary growl during greeting.

45. Mating sounds.

46. Heading out after an intruder (at 1:45).

47. Mother calls family, they respond to sirens after a nap.

48. Coyotes joining outdoor piano playing (Ash Temeña).

49. Three adult family members respond to sirens, with faint growls at the end.

50. Older mother coyote calling family, no response.

51. Coyotes “chatting” (field camera 2/5/2025).

© All information and photos are original documentation by janetkessler/coyoteyipps.com, shared with permission and proper credit.

[NOTE: This post will be periodically updated with new voicings]

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