Coyotes Responsible For Harbor Seal Deaths Along Mendocino Shoreline

Here’s S.F. Gate with more:

Gerraty didn’t expect to see any results for months, possibly years. But two nights later, late on an April evening in 2023, the images flashed onto the LCD screen. A coyote came into the frame, hauling one of the pups through the coastal brush. Its eyes glowed in the darkness as it circled its prey before gnawing off its head and digging in for the prized meal: its brain.

Gerraty called Grimes right away: Not only had the mystery been solved, but it was also the first time coyotes had ever been documented hunting harbor seals in California. Now, a new study published in the journal Ecology describes just how widespread the hunting behavior really is — and reveals previously unreleased footage of the attack. 

“One of the most exciting things about studying these animals, especially coyotes, is that they continue to surprise us. They live in our backyards, and we interact with them pretty regularly,” he said. “Yet we’re realizing that they do so much more than we had ever anticipated.”

In trms of the study that Ecology made on coyote behavior, the journal concluded that, “Throughout 64 trap-nights (32 nights total), we documented three instances of individual coyotes dragging harbor seal pups into dune vegetation, opening carcasses through the head and neck region, feeding, and removing skulls. … These lines of corroborating evidence suggest that the harbor seal pups documented on camera were killed by coyotes rather than scavenged, and the consistency of these predation events with over 50 pup carcasses showing similar mortality patterns in 2016–2024 is suggestive that coyotes regularly hunt seal pups in this locality.”