Fighting patterns in young coyotes: Initiation, escalation, and assessment

The fighting patterns of young coyotes were studied and 2,350 fights were analyzed. Our results can be summarized as follows: 1) No major injuries were sustained by any of the infants, even in unritualized bouts. 2) In pairs, there was no relationship between social rank and the proportion of fights that were initiated by either animal. 3) Dominant animals were more likely than subordinate individuals to escalate first (perform the first unprovoked dangerous move) during short interactions and to escalate and then subsequently win short fights. 4) Highest-ranking (alpha) individuals in litters did not fight the most. 5) Alpha individuals initiated 73% of the fights in which they partook. Alpha coyotes initiated and then won 86% of the contests that they initiated. 6) For fourth-ranking coyotes in litters, there was a perfect positive correlation between the proportion of times that they initiated fights and the proportion of times that they initiated and then won encounters. They initiated interactions least with the first- to third-ranking animals. 7) Alpha and fourth-ranking animals escalated about the same proportion of the time, but alpha coyotes escalated and then won a greater proportion of fights. 8) Both alpha and fourth-ranking animals initiated and then escalated the greatest proportion of time with individuals nearest in rank, with whom they may have experienced the greatest difficulty in assessing relative social standing. 9) Our data suggested that individuals, especially in litters, were able to make pre-fight assessments but that they were not perfect with respect to this ability. During-fight assessments appeared to be easier to make, using escalation to test an opponent.