I used to think coyotes were loners, you know—the kind of animal that slinks through sagebrush at dusk with that whole tragic outcast vibe.
Turns out, they’ve been running a hustle with badgers this whole time, and honestly, it’s one of the weirder partnerships I’ve stumbled across in years of reading about animal behavior. Scientists first documented this back in the 1990s, though Indigenous communities in the Southwest had observed it for generations, and the whole thing works like this: coyotes and badgers hunt ground squirrels together, dividing labor in a way that feels almost deliberate. The coyote’s got speed and can chase prey across open ground, while the badger—stocky, low to the earth, claws like garden spades—digs into burrows and flushes out anything hiding below. Neither animal could pull off this level of efficiency alone, and researchers have clocked success rates that jump by roughly 30 percent when they team up, give or take. It’s not some rare fluke either; camera traps in California, Wyoming, and Nevada have captured dozens of these duos trotting side by side through culverts and across valleys, sometimes for hours. What gets me is how casual it looks—no obvious signals, no negotiation, just two species that figured out cooperation pays better than going solo.
The thing is, this isn’t really friendship in any sentimental sense. Coyotes don’t share their kills with badgers, and badgers don’t seem to care much about the coyote’s company once the hunt’s over. They split up, wander off, probably forget the whole thing happened.
When the Hunter Becomes the Digging Partner (and Vice Versa, Depending on the Burrow Depth)
Here’s the thing: ground squirrels are paranoid little creatures with tunnel systems that fork and twist underground like subway lines. If a coyote’s chasing one across a meadow and the squirrel dives into a burrow, the coyote’s stuck—it can’t dig fast enough, and the prey just vanishes. But if a badger’s nearby, it’ll charge straight into that burrow, claws tearing through soil, and the squirrel has two options: stay put and get mauled by the badger, or bolt out a back exit and run straight into the waiting coyote. I’ve seen footage of this, and the timing feels almost choreographed, even though there’s no way these animals are planning it out in any cognitive sense we’d recognize. Biologists like Jennifer Campbell at the University of California have studied the mechanics, tracking how badgers spend less energy when coyotes are around because they don’t have to chase prey as far. Meanwhile, coyotes benefit from the badger’s excavation work, which forces hidden prey into the open. It’s mutualism, technically—a relationship where both parties gain something—but it’s also weirdly transactional, like they’re coworkers who tolerate each other for the paycheck.
Wait—maybe that’s unfair. Some researchers think there’s more going on, like playful behavior between young coyotes and badgers that suggests they might actually enjoy the partnership, or at least don’t mind it. I guess it makes sense that social tolerance would evolve if the benefits are consistent enough.
Why This Partnership Doesn’t Show Up in Every Ecosystem (Even Though It Probably Should)
You’d think this strategy would spread everywhere ground squirrels exist, but it’s mostly concentrated in the western United States and parts of Canada, in open grasslands and shrublands where visibility is high and burrows are dense. In forested areas, the dynamic breaks down—too many obstacles, not enough sight lines for the coyote to track prey effectively. And in places where coyote populations have been heavily hunted or fragmented, the behavior seems to vanish entirely, which makes sense because it requires a certain level of familiarity and maybe even cultural transmission within coyote groups. Badgers are solitary by nature, so they don’t pass down hunting techniques the way some social carnivores do, but coyotes might actually learn this strategy from watching other coyotes, though the evidence is still pretty thin. What’s definately clear is that human activity disrupts the whole thing—roads, housing developments, livestock grazing—all of it fractures the landscapes where these partnerships thrive. I’ve read accounts of biologists finding coyote-badger pairs near suburban edges, but those sightings are rare and probably unsustainable in the long term.
Anyway, the partnership isn’t symmetrical in every case. Sometimes a coyote will follow a badger around for hours without contributing much, just hoping to snag an easy meal when something bolts. Other times, the badger seems to ignore the coyote entirely, digging at its own pace, indifferent to whether the coyote sticks around or wanders off. It’s messy, uneven, and doesn’t fit neatly into the cooperative models we usually celebrate in nature documentaries.
But that’s kind of the point—it works precisely because it’s flexible, opportunistic, and doesn’t require some grand evolutionary pact. These animals aren’t friends, but they’re not enemies either, and in the weird middle ground between those extremes, they’ve carved out a strategy that’s kept both species fed for thousands of years, maybe longer.
