Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Arizona
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Goal: The first objective is to assess the distribution of coyotes across the landscape where Mexican wolves are present in Arizona at high density. Then also assess coyote density in the same habitat types with the absence of wolves. The ultimate goal is to make a comparison of the coyote densities with and without wolves to estimate if wolves are having an impact on the carnivore community structure in a similar way as they did in the Yellowstone ecosystem – in the Yellowstone ecosystem the wolves are hypothesized to be responsible for a trophic cascade effect. A minor objective is to assess the distribution of other canids. such as fox, in the same study areas, and analyze fox to wolf densities in the same way.