Coyotes have successfully colonized urban and suburban environments across North America, but face significant welfare challenges from vehicle strikes, poisoning, and lethal control programs that disrupt their social structure.
Coyotes killed by vehicle strikes experience traumatic injury deaths, and many survive initial impacts only to die slowly from their injuries in roadside areas. Poisoning with rodenticides causes a prolonged death from internal bleeding. Leg-hold traps cause injury and prolonged suffering. The social disruption caused by lethal control programs is particularly significant: coyotes have complex family structures where older individuals teach pups and help raise subsequent litters. Removing breeding adults disrupts learning and social bonding that is important for healthy development of pups. The counterproductive nature of lethal control - it triggers increased reproduction in neighboring coyotes - means that this suffering achieves nothing lasting.