Coyotes in Ohio

At a glance

Overview

The coyote is a newcomer to Ohio's wild. (source) In 1905 the federal Biological Survey placed coyotes from the central Mississippi Valley to the Pacific. (source) Ohio's first record on the state's list is a 1919 animal from Logan County that the local papers called a wolf. (source) Sightings stayed scattered for decades, the coyote was rated rare in 1973, and then in the late 1970s and 1980s the animals turned up nearly everywhere; ODNR says they were distributed statewide by 1988. (source) Today they live in all 88 counties, in farm country and in cities. (source) Every Ohio coyote tested in a 2023 study carried traces of wolf and dog. (source)

The name

Coyote is the Spanish name for the small prairie wolves of the western and southwestern parts of North America, as the Biological Survey explained to Americans in 1905. (source) In Ohio the animal was a wolf in the newspapers long before it was a coyote in the scientific record, and the confusion runs through the early accounts. (source)

Native American history

No coyote is known from Ohio's Native or early settlement record. The Ohio Division of Wildlife states flatly that coyotes did not historically occur in Ohio. (source) Ohio biologists writing in 1990 floated a different idea: that the prairie and woodland mosaic of early western Ohio may have supported a sparse native coyote population, and that some of the brush or prairie wolves killed in 19th-century community hunts may have been coyotes. (source) They offered it as a possibility, not a finding, and no specimen supports it.

Stories

The country they walked into

Ohio cleared the way for the coyote by removing the wolf and the forest. A Northwest Territory law of 1799 encouraged killing wolves because the raising of sheep ought to be encouraged by every possible means, and two laws of 1800 put bounties on wolves and panthers. (source) Athens County stopped paying its bounty, $3 for young and $4 for adult wolves and mountain lions, in 1818. (source) That December 24 the Great Hinckley Hunt in Medina County drew several hundred men; one old county account counts 17 wolves, 21 bears and more than 300 deer, with the wolf-scalp bounty spent on whisky. (source) ODNR says there are no final records, but by 1855 wolves, bobcats and mountain lions had been eliminated from the state. (source) The 1990 coyote paper gives 1878 for the end of Ohio's wolves, and the sources do not agree on a last wolf. (source)

Ohio's original forest of more than 24 million acres was down to 4 million acres by 1883. (source) White-tailed deer and wild turkeys were declared extinct in Ohio in 1909. (source) The sheep killer of the day was the dog: a 1905 federal bulletin noted losses to dogs of $152,034 in Ohio in 1891. (source) A 2018 continental study found that coyotes began moving east into the deciduous forest around 1900, and that forest fragmentation and the removal of larger predators probably made it possible. (source)

Coyotes in crates

The first coyotes in Ohio's newspapers arrived by rail or by gift. In the summer of 1908 a coyote shipped from Kansas to Smithville in Wayne County got away and began raiding chicken flocks. (source) That December hunters in carriages and on foot tracked it through six inches of snow, and one shot it from a pony; it had lived on poultry, rabbits and young pigs. (source) In November 1911 Crawford County farmers were hunting a coyote that a western friend had sent to one of them, which escaped its cage and attacked livestock. (source) In October 1913 the Northern Ohio Fox Hunters' club, camped near West Point in Columbiana County, secured foxes, jack rabbits and a coyote to release before 40 hounds. (source) In October 1926 a man near Kent shot a gray-streaked animal of nearly 30 pounds, pronounced a coyote or wolf, that wore a collar and was believed to have escaped from captivity. (source) None of these papers says the escapees founded anything, and nobody examined most of the animals.

Wood County, 1915

Four years before the official first record, a wire item datelined Fostoria reported that Wood County hunters had shot and killed a coyote, the first animal of its kind ever shot in that section of Ohio. (source) No specimen or later description of it has surfaced, and it may have been an escaped captive like the others. (source)

The DeGraff wolf

In January 1919 farmers in Union Township, Logan County, blamed a large gray wolf for killing sheep and pigs, and a drive was set for Wednesday, January 22; Hardin County men talked of going because it would probably be the last hunt of the kind in Ohio. (source) The DeGraff Journal sounded the call: "Wolf! Wolf! Listen, you sneak, the people are after you!" (source) The papers said the first hunt was attended by thousands, but the east line was weak and the animal broke through and escaped. (source) After the hunt Samuel Warner, a 39-year-old Piqua sportsman, died of blood loss when his son's shotgun went off by accident and shot away his arm. (source) About a week later Harry Harner shot the animal near the Stony Creek church, and the Bellefontaine Examiner, reprinted in Kenton, said those in a position to know called it a real wolf and no dog or coyote. (source)

The 1990 list of Ohio coyote records begins with DeGraff, Logan County, 1919, cited to a sportsmen's magazine article titled "A wolf hunt in Ohio." (source) ODNR's timeline repeats the date as the year the first coyote was seen in Ohio. (source) The record is thin on what the animal actually was: no newspaper of the time called it a coyote, and no one is known to have examined it.

The first Ohio records

Wildlife biologists Weeks, Tori and Shieldcastle gathered 32 reported coyote occurrences from 1919 through 1978, 28 of them dated, in the Ohio Journal of Science in 1990. (source) They found none from 1921 to 1934 or between 1961 and 1971, and suggested the gaps might mean coyotes had stopped being news rather than that they were absent. (source) Seventeen of the dated records fall in 1939-1949, in 16 counties from Defiance to Hocking, most of them notes in the state's own Ohio Conservation Bulletin. (source) The list, as printed:

The 1940s records cover far-apart corners of the state at once: Madison, Logan and Union in the west-central counties, Harrison and Carroll in the east, Henry, Lucas, Wood and Defiance in the northwest. (source) The newspapers add kills the list missed: on January 5, 1939 a fox hunter killed a 38-pound animal near Bowerston in Harrison County that locals took for a wolf and a Pittsburgh taxidermist identified as a northern coyote. (source)

A federal hunter for Henry County

In November 1942 the state Conservation Division answered a coyote pack near Neapolis in Henry County that farmers said had eaten about 1,000 chickens, besides turkeys, ducks and some 60 sheep, since February. (source) It detailed Game Protector Irvan Patrick, who had been a U.S. government hunter in Colorado for three years, and he had already trapped two. (source)

Wolves or coyotes in Carroll County

In January 1943 Carroll County's commissioners paid a $20 bounty on animals killed near Augusta that had been raiding sheep. (source) The Carroll Journal called them wolves and reported weights of 46, 35 and 34 pounds, adding that the identification had provoked a wide controversy, one faction contending they were coyotes. (source) The Free Press-Standard the same day called them timber wolves and gave weights of 31, 35 and 48 pounds. (source) By January 28 the commissioners' notice offered the bounty on wolves or coyotes instead of dogs or wolves. (source) A 1963 Carrollton wildlife column called the episode the last substantiated record of wolves in Ohio, citing a 1961 Journal of Mammalogy note, while the 1990 list counts Augusta, 1943, as a coyote record. (source)

Escaped or released

For years officials treated each new coyote as somebody's lost pet. In 1953 the Ohio Wildlife Council banned importing live deer, bear, coyote, fox and wolf to prevent disease and the spread of unwanted species. (source) In February 1963 an animal found dead on the turnpike in Erie County proved to be part dog and part coyote, and Ohio State zoologist Eugene Good said such animals turned up from time to time, apparently brought from the West by travelers or migrant workers. (source) A wildlife column that March said that when a coyote turned up it was generally assumed to have escaped or been released, though one could never rule out that it arrived under its own power. (source) In 1973 a committee of the Ohio chapter of The Wildlife Society listed the coyote as rare, beside the bobcat, black bear, river otter and badger, and wrote that it would seem unwise to do anything to encourage its increase in farm country. (source)

Everywhere at once

Then the coyotes arrived in numbers. A Warren County fur buyer said in 1982 that until five years before, you never heard of coyotes around there. (source) A survey of state game protectors in 1979-80 logged 336 wild canid encounters in 46 of the 88 counties, led by Ashland with 49, Knox with 33 and Hardin with 30. (source) Of 438 skulls collected in 71 counties from 1982 to 1988, 379 were coyotes, 10 coyote-dog hybrids and 25 feral dogs. (source) Harrison County paid a coyote bounty, and Logan, Shelby, Hancock, Hardin and Fayette counties did so for short periods in 1984-85. (source) Park staff first documented a coyote in the Cuyahoga Valley between Cleveland and Akron in 1988. (source) That December the governor signed House Bill 246, extending a state coyote indemnity program that repaid livestock producers for animals killed by coyotes. (source) The 1990 paper concluded that the coyote was well established throughout the state and probably present in all 88 counties. (source)

The bowhunter index, 1990-2023

ODNR measures coyotes by how often deer archers see them. Bowhunters' sightings rose through the 1990s and early 2000s, peaked in the early 2010s and have leveled off or slipped since; the 2023 rate of 10.68 coyotes per 1,000 hours was the lowest since 2001, against a 10-year mean of 13.22. (source) The yearly values below are read from the chart in ODNR's 2024 furbearer report and are accurate to about 0.3. (source)

ODNR says sightings run highest in the western half of the state. (source) It reads the plateau, with coyotes now statewide, as a sign the species may have reached the most the state's resources can support. (source)

Harvest and fur

The estimated statewide coyote harvest was 48,774 in 2014-15 and 17,317 in 2023-24, with years in between ranging from 21,720 to 40,257. (source) Ohio fur dealers bought 2,307 coyote pelts in 2014-15 and 317 in 2023-24, when the average price was $8.06. (source) Killing coyotes has not held them down: Ohio State Extension notes that coyotes return quickly after removal programs, even over large areas, and raise more pups when their numbers fall. (source)

Wolf and dog in the blood

Genetically, Ohio's coyotes are mixed. A 2014 study of 427 canids found that eastern coyotes form an extensive hybrid swarm and that Ohio coyotes, previously thought free of mixing, were highly admixed with wolves and dogs. (source) A 2016 whole-genome study detected at least 10 percent gray wolf ancestry in its one Ohio coyote. (source) A 2023 Ohio University dissertation by Wyza found significant wolf and dog introgression in all 97 Ohio coyotes tested, with dog shares of 2.6 to 17.6 percent in tissue samples. (source) Ohio's own wolves were long gone, so the dissertation's explanations look north and west, to coyotes mixing with wolves around the Great Lakes, Minnesota and Ontario before moving south. (source)

The word coywolf drew wide attention after a PBS Nature program in January 2014. Ohio State's Stan Gehrt rejected the distinction: "They're all coyotes. There may be a few with wolf genes, some with dog genes." (source) ODNR says there are no wild wolves living in Ohio. (source)

What they eat and where they go

Ohio coyotes are mostly small-mammal hunters and scavengers. In 50 scats from the Cuyahoga Valley in 1998-99, meadow voles turned up in 28 percent, cottontails and white-tailed deer in 20 percent each, and raccoons in 18 percent, the deer mainly as carrion. (source) At The Wilds, the conservation park on strip-mine land in Muskingum County, ten trail cameras in February-July 2015 recorded coyotes in 79 of 2,732 trap events, at 8 of the 10 sites. (source) The same paper notes that the first documented coyote in Muskingum County was in 1949. (source) Young coyotes leave home in the fall and set up territories 10 to 100 miles away, ODNR says. (source) One male collared by the Ohio State coyote project in Gahanna went to Buckeye Lake, back to Gahanna, north past Marysville and then southwest beyond Cincinnati within 20 days, crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, and came back to settle near Mason. (source)

Coyotes may have pushed out a smaller cousin. The Ohio State gray fox project notes that coyotes became common around the 1980s, about when gray fox numbers seemed to nosedive, and calls it not quite a smoking gun; Ohio listed the gray fox as a Species of Concern in 2017. (source) Deer have done well alongside them: ODNR's furbearer biologist said in 2015 that Ohio's deer and coyote trends were both going up. (source)

Coyotes and people

Bites are rare and attacks rarer. Ohio State Extension wrote in 2010 that the only recorded coyote attack on a person in Ohio was by a coyote infected with raccoon rabies. (source) On a September 2023 evening near Southpoint Boulevard and Obetz Road in south Columbus, a child was bitten on the leg and taken to Nationwide Children's Hospital; State Wildlife Officer Brad Kiger called it very rare, probably the second he knew of in Franklin County since 2000. (source) The girl, three years old, spent two days in the hospital and took rabies shots, and ODNR said an officer had killed a coyote that was approaching people in the same neighborhood the week before. (source) In 2025 Cleveland Metroparks ecologist Jon Cepek counted only two recorded coyote bites to people in Ohio, one by a rabid animal. (source) Gehrt has said that in 25 years of tracking Chicago-area coyotes no one there was bitten. (source)

Livestock are another matter. Coyotes may prey on livestock, particularly sheep and chickens, ODNR says. (source) Ohio State Extension notes that losses peak in spring and that on large sheep farms one or two coyotes caused 90 percent of the kills. (source) The Ohio State project points out that Ohio raises more sheep and lambs than any state east of the Mississippi in flocks averaging 36 head, so each loss hurts. (source) ODNR began funding Ohio State's coyote and livestock study in 2021, and researchers have sampled more than 400 roadkilled and harvested coyotes from 59 counties. (source)

Hunting rules

Coyotes may be hunted and trapped year-round in Ohio unless a division rule says otherwise. (source) There is no bag or possession limit, and coyotes may be taken without a fur taker permit, though a hunting license is needed. (source) At night furbearer hunters need a continuous white light visible a quarter mile, but those calling fox, raccoon or coyote from a stationary position may use a single beam of any color. (source) During the youth deer gun, deer gun and muzzleloader seasons, daytime coyote hunters must also hold a deer permit, may not use dogs in daylight in the deer gun and muzzleloader seasons, and in muzzleloader season must use a muzzleloader or archery gear. (source)

Myths and the record

"Coyotes have always lived in Ohio." ODNR says coyotes did not historically occur in Ohio, and the first record is from 1919. (source)

"The state stocked them." Single coyotes were brought in and escaped between 1908 and 1926 (source), but ODNR describes the population as spreading east on its own as land was cleared and larger carnivores removed. (source)

"They only showed up in the 1990s." There were 17 records in 16 counties in the 1940s alone; what grew in the 1990s was the number. (source)

"The population is exploding." Bowhunter sightings in 2023 were the lowest since 2001. (source) No agency has published a population count; a 2015 magazine report noted that no one had put a number on northeast Ohio's coyotes. (source)

Timeline

• 1908: A coyote shipped from Kansas escapes at Smithville and is shot in December. (source)
• 1919: The DeGraff wolf hunt in Logan County becomes the first entry in Ohio's coyote records. (source)
• 1942: A former federal hunter is sent after a coyote pack in Henry County. (source)
• 1943: Carroll County pays $20 bounties on wolves or coyotes near Augusta. (source)
• 1973: The coyote is listed as rare in Ohio. (source)
• 1979-1980: Game protectors report 336 wild canid encounters in 46 counties. (source)
• 1988: Coyotes are documented in the Cuyahoga Valley and, per ODNR, are now statewide. (source)
• 1988: House Bill 246 extends the state's coyote indemnity program for livestock losses. (source)
• 1990: Bowhunters see about 2.9 coyotes per 1,000 hours. (source)
• 2023: A three-year-old is bitten by a coyote in south Columbus in September. (source)
• 2023: The bowhunter index falls to 10.68, the lowest since 2001. (source)

Sources

• kb.osu.edu: Weeks, Tori and Shieldcastle, Coyotes (Canis latrans) in Ohio (1990)
• kb.osu.edu: Smith, Burnard, Good and Keener, Rare and Endangered Vertebrates of Ohio (1973)
• kb.osu.edu: Cepek, Diet Composition of Coyotes in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (2004)
• archive.org: Lantz, Coyotes in their economic relations (1905)
• dam.assets.ohio.gov: Ohio Wildlife History Timeline (2016)
• dam.assets.ohio.gov: Wildlife and the Settlement of Ohio
• dam.assets.ohio.gov: Furbearer Monitoring Report 2024 (pdf)
• dam.assets.ohio.gov: A Coyote is in Your Backyard (ODNR card, pdf)
• ohiodnr.gov: Coyote
• codes.ohio.gov: rule 1501:31-15-18
• codes.ohio.gov: rule 1501:31-15-09
• codes.ohio.gov: rule 1501:31-15-11
• ohioline.osu.edu: Preventing and Controlling Coyote Problems (W-4)
• ohiocoyote.org: About the Ohio Coyote Project
• ohiocoyote.org: Over 400 Coyotes Sampled
• ohiocoyote.org: Oh, the Places You Will Go
• ohiocoyote.org: Ohio Gray Fox Project
• etd.ohiolink.edu: Wyza, Canis Introgression in Ohio's Coyotes (2023)
• europepmc.org: Monzon, Kays and Dykhuizen (2014)
• ebi.ac.uk: vonHoldt et al., Whole-genome sequence analysis (2016)
• zookeys.pensoft.net: Hody and Kays, Mapping the expansion of coyotes (2018)
• doi.org: jasmr17010015 (bobcats and coyotes at The Wilds)
• beltmag.com: Is Ohio Ready For A Big Predator Comeback?
• ideastream.org: Coyotes among us (2025)
• nbc4i.com: Child recovering after being bitten by coyote in south Columbus (2023)
• abc6onyourside.com: 3-year-old girl attacked by coyote in south Columbus (2023)
• friendsofrhp.org: The Great Hinckley Hunt
• ohiomemory.org: Wooster Daily News, October 2, 1908
• ohiomemory.org: Wooster Daily News, December 8, 1908
• ohiomemory.org: Graphic-News-Republican, November 23, 1911
• ohiomemory.org: Alliance Daily Review, October 14, 1913
• ohiomemory.org: Journal-Herald, February 6, 1915
• ohiomemory.org: Graphic-News-Republican, January 23, 1919
• ohiomemory.org: Graphic-News-Republican, January 30, 1919
• ohiomemory.org: Journal-Herald, January 31, 1919
• ohiomemory.org: Graphic-News-Republican, February 6, 1919
• ohiomemory.org: Kent Tribune, October 28, 1926
• ohiomemory.org: Free Press-Standard, January 19, 1939
• ohiomemory.org: Free Press-Standard, November 5, 1942
• ohiomemory.org: Carroll Journal, January 7, 1943
• ohiomemory.org: Free Press-Standard, January 7, 1943
• ohiomemory.org: Free Press-Standard, January 28, 1943
• ohiomemory.org: Chagrin Falls Exponent, March 27, 1953
• ohiomemory.org: Worthington News, February 28, 1963
• ohiomemory.org: Free Press-Standard, March 7, 1963
• ohiomemory.org: Western Star, December 29, 1982
• ohiomemory.org: Star Free Press, December 27, 1988