Coyotes in Joshua Tree National Park: Where to See Them, and When

Coyotes are one of the animals you're most likely to see in Joshua Tree. The park lists them, along with antelope ground squirrels, jackrabbits, red-tailed hawks, ravens, and fence lizards, as its most common wildlife (NPS). Seeing one isn't the hard part. Seeing one behaving like a wild animal is.

My guide to Joshua Tree National Park profiles the coyote with the park's other common animals. This post goes further: where to look on each day of a short trip, what coyotes are up to in late fall, and what to do when one trots up to your car.

A coyote pausing beside a granite slab in Joshua Tree, October 2000. Main image: photo by Simon Tonge, CC0, via iNaturalist, cropped, with text added.

Coyotes live everywhere in the park, from the Joshua tree woodland and boulder piles of the high Mojave to the creosote flats of the Pinto Basin (NPS). They're mostly out at night and around sunrise and sunset, and the park notes that wildlife in general gets busier after a rain. Crowds push animals away, and the park says plainly that there's no single best place to see wildlife (NPS). Nothing is guaranteed.

How to recognize a coyote, and which one lives here

The coyote, Canis latrans, is a lean wild dog, much smaller than a wolf: roughly 25 to 35 pounds and 16 to 20 inches at the shoulder, with gray to reddish fur and a long, bushy tail (NPS). Look for the long legs and big upright ears.

The park's mammal list names the local subspecies as the Mearns coyote, Canis latrans mearnsi, and rates it common parkwide (NPS). The same page notes that many of the park's mammals are paler than their relatives elsewhere. Don't expect a field mark that separates it from a coyote in Los Angeles; the label tells you where you are more than what you're looking at.

The likeliest mix-up is a fox. The park has kit foxes on the desert flats and gray foxes in rocky canyons (NPS). Both are far smaller and daintier than a coyote.

A coyote walking past granite boulders, observed in Joshua Tree National Park on March 15, 2013. Photo: Scott Loarie, CC0, via iNaturalist.

Where and when to look in Joshua Tree

Coyotes range across the whole park, so the trick is being somewhere open at the right hour. Washes, road edges, and wide flats let you spot one moving; boulder piles hide them. Midday at a full Hidden Valley lot is about the worst bet.

• One day: the easy and moderate plans in the guide end with sunset at Cap Rock, Quail Springs, or Arch Rock. Scan the open ground on the drive out as the light drops. The strenuous plan drives in before dawn for Ryan Mountain; watch the road edges.
• Two days: Day 2 crosses the park on Pinto Basin Road into the Colorado Desert. It's the long, open stretch where a crossing coyote is easy to see, and each plan reaches the Cholla Cactus Garden late in the day. Drive the return slowly.
• Three days: Day 3 moves to the park's northern edge, around Black Rock, Indian Cove, and Fortynine Palms, with sunset at Black Rock or Indian Cove in most versions.

If you're stargazing at a pullout on Pinto Basin Road, which the guide recommends on a moonless night, you may hear coyotes before you see one. Don't go looking with a flashlight: spotlighting wildlife is prohibited in the park (NPS).

My overview of the Joshua Tree itineraries shows how those days are built.

A coyote trotting along a roadside below Joshua trees, observed in Joshua Tree National Park, Riverside County, California, on January 8, 2016. Photo: Ken-ichi Ueda, CC BY 4.0, via iNaturalist.

What coyotes are doing in late fall

Coyotes in Southern California breed in late January and February, and pups are born in March and April. The young stay with the family for at least six months, and some head off on their own by late fall (CDFW). A lone coyote trotting along a wash in November may be a young one looking for its own patch of desert.

The coyote at your car window

This is the part I'd want every visitor to read. The park says that coyotes that have been fed hang around populated areas and beg, and that begging animals are more likely to end up in the road and be hit by cars. Its own summary is blunt: a fed animal is a dead animal (NPS).

So the coyote that walks straight up to your car at a pullout isn't a lucky sighting. It's an animal that has learned to expect food. Don't toss it anything, and don't sit filming it while it waits. Drive on slowly. If an animal is approaching people, the park asks you to tell the nearest ranger.

Watching coyotes responsibly

• It's illegal to approach, feed, handle, capture, or harass any wild animal in the park. If your presence makes an animal move, you're too close (NPS).
• Keep food in your car or a hard-sided container and put all trash in bins, even at a quick picnic stop (NPS).
• If you bring a dog, keep it on a leash no longer than six feet; pets aren't allowed on trails. The park warns that coyotes and mountain lions can kill pets, even in daylight (NPS).

Fitting coyotes into your trip

You don't need a special outing. Be on the open flats in the first and last hour of light, drive slowly, and watch the edges. A wild coyote crossing Pinto Basin Road at dusk is the sighting worth having.

My Joshua Tree guide profiles 14 animals you're likely to see, with where and when to look for each, and lays out nine itineraries for one, two, or three days. For the full species picture, see the park's own animals page.

Before you go: see Joshua Tree National Park alerts and current conditions, checked daily, for current closures and what they mean for your trip.

This is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Park Service. Conditions change; check the park's current alerts before you go.