So in the fall and winter coyotes cross territories this time of year a good bit and seem to tolerate each other. My question is at what time does the mated pair start down sizing to a small core area around the den. Is it closer to whelping date or does it start after the female is bred. I am curious about how long it takes before they become intolerant of transients in there area.

Remember in our area we have a bunch of micro areas when it comes to the deer rut. We have rutting going on from November into the 2nd week of February, and there might be 4 different zones within 10 miles of each other. I feel the same is true with coyotes. Fresh bait and tainted bait works good until about the 2nd week of February. I have found that if I change to gland and urine around that time my catch rate skyrockets. The entire month of March they go craze for gland and urine. It starts to die down around the middle of April as they start dropping pups as they are looking for food. But each micro area is different down here. But I have found traditionally March starts the territorial switch.

I think population density really effects movement related to whelping.

Low populations, those bred pairs have den locations staked out and ready probably shortly after breeding. Or even before. There's no competition for the good spots. If the foods there, and they're allowed to, they become homebodies pretty early.

High populations on the other hand, especially those with a good cross section of age groups, I'm convinced some pairs are still looking for suitable denning locations very late into gestation. All the good spots are spoken for by older, more established pairs. So you can see quite a bit of movement late into spring.

Coyotes can be pretty particular about where they want that den. They definitely value seclusion, especially in the first phase of denning. Not to say they wont den in some really stupid places, but I think those dens are there because that was the only option. They're not like fox that will just plop pups down anywhere (if they can help it).