Coyote Sounds: Howls, Yips and What They Mean

This is general information, not veterinary, medical or legal advice. For an injured or aggressive animal, a bite, a pet attack or a suspected rabies exposure, call your doctor, your vet, local animal control, or the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD).

Reviewed by the editorial desk against the cited sources. The desk claims no wildlife-biology, veterinary or medical credential; see our editorial policy.

Coyotes announce themselves at dusk and after dark, and many Arizona residents first notice them by sound. This page covers what the wildlife and extension sources say about coyote sounds. It is part of our coyote information cluster, and for what to do when you see one, go to what to do during a sighting.

The sounds coyotes make

• Howls, yelps and barks. AZGFD says coyote vocalizations consist of howls, yelps and barks, “regularly heard during almost any night spent in the field” (AZGFD, Coyote).
• Howls, yaps and dog-like barks. University of Arizona Cooperative Extension calls the voice “quite distinctive” and describes various howls, high-pitched yaps and occasional dog-like barks (UA Extension, Coyotes).
• Barking and howling in the evening and night. UC IPM says coyotes can be heard vocalizing throughout most of the year (UC IPM).

When you are likely to hear them

AZGFD calls coyotes nocturnal and crepuscular, meaning active at night and around dawn and dusk. University of Arizona Extension says coyotes are most active at night and in the early morning and late evening, and may be active through the day in areas without disturbance and in cooler times of year. UC IPM says they vocalize less during the early stages of pup-rearing. University of Arizona Extension gives the birth window as March through May.

What the sounds mean

This is where many web pages invent detail, and we will not. The sources we are allowed to cite name the types of sound but do not assign a meaning to each call, so we do not tell you that a particular yip means a kill, a warning or a territory claim. We also cannot tell you how many coyotes are calling.

What the agencies do say is practical:

• Hearing a coyote is normal. AZGFD says coyotes are common and found in virtually every habitat in Arizona, and that interactions with humans are generally rare.
• What matters for safety is behavior you can see, not sound. The agencies’ warning signs are a coyote that does not run away when challenged, approaches people or pets, or seems unafraid; see warning signs of bold or aggressive coyotes.
• AZGFD says if you see a coyote near your home, do not ignore it, because ignoring it can let it lose its natural fear of humans (AZGFD, Living with Coyotes).

Who is making the noise, and when in the year

AZGFD describes the coyote as a medium-sized, doglike canid, grayish-brown to reddish-brown, with large pointed ears, a long narrow nose and a bushy, black-tipped tail. Arizona coyotes weigh about 20 to 30 pounds, with males larger. They usually travel and hunt alone or in loose pairs, and are vocal animals that howl, yelp and bark (AZGFD, Living with Coyotes).

AZGFD says coyotes mate from January to March, and that litters of 4 to 7 pups are born in a den between March and May. A den is a reason for extra distance: do not haze a coyote that may be protecting pups or a den, and keep pets leashed and away. If a coyote seems to be denning near your home, call AZGFD or local animal control for advice rather than approaching.

Coyote or something else?

People often ask whether a sound they heard was a coyote, a dog or a fox. The sources we can cite do not give a way to separate them by sound alone, so we do not guess. For identification by appearance see coyote vs dog, fox and bobcat identification.

If you hear coyotes near your home

1. Keep small pets indoors or in a roofed enclosure, supervise them at dawn and at night, and always leash them. AZGFD says a 6-foot fence is not reliable protection and that bold coyotes have attacked small dogs on retractable leashes (AZGFD, Living with Coyotes, accessed 2026-11-14).
2. Check that nothing is attracting coyotes: pet food, garbage, fallen fruit. See remove food and water attractants.
3. If you see one, follow how to respond to a coyote. Do not feed it.
4. Read protect pets and children from coyotes.

Who to call

Sound alone is not an emergency. Call local animal control or AZGFD about an aggressive or sick-looking animal, and your doctor or vet after any bite, scratch or pet contact. Local numbers are on who to call in Pima County and Arizona.

What we could not source

We did not find an allowed-source explanation of what particular coyote calls mean, of how far a howl carries, or of month-by-month calling patterns, so this page leaves them out.