when coyotes pair up to breed they get pretty serious about chasing off other k9's from the denning area till pups are about 3-4 months old.
I don't think they are "alphas" just cause they breed and will protect offspring whenever possible.
I guess you could call the pair that bred "alpha" so far as they relate to their pups. While pups are still pups. That to me is not pack behavior.
When 3-4 adults get together in bad winter weather to hunt deer or antelope I suppose that is pack behavior. when a kill is made they squabble constantly till its all ate. one may be able to keep everybody else from just quickly getting a belly full but its an ongoing contest. I SUSPECT when they group up like that they were littermates or littermates with parent(s).
The great dispersal that is such a hot topic doesn't happen like many think. Some pups do wander off. I don't believe they have a plan or a destination in mind. I don't Believe they are even capable of planning ahead. They certainly don't have any way of knowing whats over the hill till they cross it. Most pups live their whole life within 10-20 miles of where they were born.
An adult with pups that knows what a trap is, (which is a lot rarer than many think) will keep pups away during summer control work. Sometimes the lesson sticks and often it does not.
I never been to college or even finished high school. What I wrote though is what I have observed and concluded after chasing the things . Never trapped or hunted them east of the Mississippi but I have trapped/hunted them in the desert, in the prairie, in the sand hills, and in the rockies. It holds true in all those places.
