Usually they hunt singly or in relays with others rather than in packs. Coyotes also prey on unprotected sheep and occasionally on weakened deer. Coyotes probably mate for life.
Coyotes range from Panama to the North Slope of Alaska.
By the late 1970s their eastern expansion had reached the Atlantic seaboard, and they are now found in every state except Hawaii. The eastern coyote, which is darker and one-fourth again as large as the western coyote, is considered a subspecies. It has become so abundant that it has appeared in suburban areas of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. To explain this sudden expansion, some specialists have theorized that eastern coyotes were once natives of the region and that they reemerged from remote wilderness areas after the reforestation of the eastern states. Others have theorized that the animals arose from the western coyote, which migrated east, interbred with small wolves, and produced a larger subspecies.