Coyotes have spread across seven of the Outer Banks' barrier islands and appear to be entrenched for good, according to a new study that used fecal DNA to count and track the animals between 2024 and 2025. Researchers identified 62 individual coyotes and estimated that somewhere between 45 and 60 of them inhabit the islands at any given time, despite more than a decade of federal efforts to remove them.
A DNA Count Years in the Making
The research, led by scientists at NC State University, grew out of concern that coyotes are preying on shore-nesting birds and protected sea turtles along the Outer Banks. Researchers collected 383 fecal samples across the islands during three seasons — winter 2024, summer 2024 and winter 2025 — and successfully genotyped 247 of them, ultimately identifying 62 unique coyotes made up of 20 males and 42 females. It's described as the first peer-reviewed estimate of coyote density and population size on a barrier island anywhere.
Density varied widely from island to island. Seasonal estimates ranged from 0.04 to 1.01 coyotes per square kilometer, with Bodie Island — which is connected to the mainland — posting the highest numbers, while North Core Banks had the lowest density, followed by Ocracoke Island. Coyote density generally fell as islands became more isolated from the mainland, the study found, and genetic data showed Bodie Island, North Core Banks and Ocracoke Island all had detectable genetic connections back to mainland coyotes.
Packs, Family Lines and a Few Founders
Bodie and Hatteras islands each supported two separate coyote packs occupying different parts of the islands, while the rest of the surveyed islands appeared to host just a single pack apiece ranging across the whole landmass. Genetic analysis revealed hierarchical population structure and four distinct genetic groups across the Outer Banks, three of which were largely tied to specific island groupings: Hatteras and Pea islands, Bodie Island, and South Core Banks and Shackleford Banks together. Those island clusters showed low genetic diversity, high differentiation and multiple island-specific genetic markers, generally made up of just one or two family groups.
Daniel Sossover, a research associate in NC State's Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, said the pattern suggests each island was colonized by only a handful of founding coyotes whose descendants now make up most of the local population. Mainland immigration may also be helping sustain some of the smaller island groups, according to the study. “Coyotes are here to stay,” Sossover said, adding that the findings highlight the animals' remarkable adaptability and ability to colonize new territory. Researchers believe the coyotes likely reached the islands over the past two decades by crossing bridges and swimming between landmasses.
Why Removal Hasn't Worked
The National Park Service has spent more than a decade trying to manage coyotes' impact on nesting wildlife through lethal removal, beginning at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 2009, expanding to Cape Lookout National Seashore in 2017, and reaching Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge in 2023. All three sites serve as nesting habitat for shore-nesting birds and sea turtles. From 2009 to 2025, the Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lethally removed more than 170 coyotes from the three locations combined.
Yet the new study found that removals were modest system-wide — accounting for roughly a third of the standing population in 2024 and 2025 — even though they were locally concentrated enough that, in some island-years, removals met or exceeded an island's entire estimated coyote population. The Park Service removed 14 coyotes from Bodie and Hatteras islands in 2024 alone, but researchers continued detecting coyotes on both islands throughout the year. Researchers also found substantial turnover, with new coyotes replacing many of the individuals that were removed or disappeared, a pattern consistent with how coyotes elsewhere often respond to heavy removal pressure by breeding earlier, having larger litters, and moving into vacated territory.
Notably, mean apparent survival did not significantly differ between islands with active predator management and islands without it, according to the study's findings. Taken together, the researchers concluded that eradicating coyotes from the Outer Banks appears unlikely to succeed, and that wildlife managers may need to lean more on behavioral deterrents and other non-lethal strategies alongside, or instead of, continued lethal removal to protect vulnerable nesting species.
Deterrents Already in Use, With Mixed Results
Efforts to use non-lethal tools are already underway on Hatteras Island, where the Seashore has deployed fladry, nest exclosures and plastic grates to keep coyotes away from turtle nests and shorebird closures, according to Island Free Press. Coyotes have sometimes gotten around those barriers anyway — wildlife officials told the outlet the animals were “actually chewing through some of the fladry.” The Seashore's trapping program has aimed narrowly at coyotes that have learned to exploit the nesting system rather than broader culls.
Estimates of the damage coyotes do to nesting wildlife vary by source. Island Free Press reported that coyote predation accounts for roughly 7% of sea turtle eggs lost at the Seashore, while the Ocracoke Observer put the figure at less than 7% over a five-year period. Island Free Press also reported that coyotes have taken an estimated 30% to 50% of American oystercatcher eggs over the prior five years, though that trend has reportedly bent downward since 2024 as deterrents came into wider use.
On Ocracoke in August 2025, USDA Wildlife Services spent two weeks searching for signs of coyotes before trapping and euthanizing three adult males, the Observer reported. Seashore staff afterward saw no further coyote signs, but the outlet cautioned that doesn't guarantee there aren't others present or that more won't show up. The new NC State findings, published in the Journal of Wildlife Management and supported by the National Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring Division, suggest that caution may be warranted system-wide: even aggressive, targeted removal has repeatedly failed to keep coyotes off the islands for long.
