Black Coyotes

“Black Coyotes” are an unknown population of black-furred canids, probably melanistic coyotes, seen in the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests around Caledon, Belfountain and Mono, near Brampton, Ontario since the 2010s. They resemble ordinary coyotes, but have a completely black coat, occasionally with a grey or white patch on the chest, and are significantly larger, being about 60 pounds, unlike the ordinary weight for a coyote, which is 20 to 40 pounds.

The first sighting that caught the public eye was In 2015 when a crew of railway workers from Brampton claimed to have seen a completely black canid along the tracks in Caledon. There was no evidence of these unknown canids besides anecdotal accounts until 2016, when Deanna Gardiner, a resident from Mono, took two photographs of a “black coyote.” If the animal she photographed was a melanistic coyote, it would be one of, if not the only photographs of one outside of the southeastern USA, and would be some of the largest known coyotes.