Coyotes will eat raccoons, though it’s not a staple of their diet. Coyotes are opportunistic omnivores that eat whatever is most available and easiest to obtain, and raccoons fall into the category of prey they can and do kill when the opportunity arises. That said, a healthy adult raccoon is a formidable target, so coyotes more commonly go after smaller, easier meals.
How Coyotes Fit Raccoons Into Their Diet
Coyotes eat an enormous range of food: rabbits, rodents, deer fawns, birds, insects, fruit, pet food, and garbage. They adjust their diet based on what’s around them, shifting the balance between hunting live prey and scavenging dead animals depending on what’s easiest to find. In areas with abundant human food waste, coyotes lean more heavily toward scavenging. In wilder settings, they do more active hunting.
Raccoons appear in coyote diets primarily in two ways. First, coyotes will hunt and kill raccoons that are vulnerable: juveniles, sick or injured animals, or individuals caught in open terrain without escape routes. Second, coyotes readily scavenge raccoon carcasses from roadkill or other causes of death. Both count as “eating raccoons,” but scavenging is likely the more common route, especially in suburban and urban areas where roadkill is plentiful and raccoon populations are dense.
Why Raccoons Aren’t Easy Prey
An adult raccoon typically weighs 10 to 30 pounds and is surprisingly tough in a fight. They have sharp teeth, strong claws, and a thick build that makes them harder to take down than comparably sized prey like rabbits. Raccoons are also excellent climbers and can escape up trees when threatened, something most coyote prey cannot do. A lone coyote going after a healthy adult raccoon risks injury, which in the wild can be a death sentence.
This is why coyotes tend to target the easiest version of any food source. A raccoon kit separated from its mother, a raccoon weakened by disease, or one caught crossing open ground far from trees is far more likely to become a meal than a healthy adult near cover. Coyotes hunting in pairs or family groups have a better chance of taking down an adult raccoon, but even then, the effort may not be worth it when easier food is available.
How Raccoons Respond to Coyote Presence
Raccoons clearly treat coyotes as a threat. Research from NC State University used camera traps to study raccoon behavior in areas shared with coyotes and found that raccoons spent about 46 percent of their time in a vigilant posture, with their heads raised and scanning for danger. That’s a significant chunk of time devoted to watching for predators rather than foraging.
Interestingly, raccoons were most vigilant when they were alone. When other animals, including other raccoons, were nearby, individual raccoons spent less time looking around. Researchers attributed this to a “many eyes” effect: with more animals watching, each individual can afford to spend more time eating. This suggests raccoons are well aware of predation risk from coyotes and actively manage it through group behavior and alertness.
Raccoons also adjust their activity patterns in areas with coyotes. They may shift to times or locations where coyote activity is lower, effectively carving out space to forage more safely. This kind of behavioral avoidance is common between predator and prey species that share the same habitat.
Urban vs. Rural Differences
In rural and wild settings, coyotes have fewer easy food sources and may pursue raccoons more actively. The open terrain in agricultural and grassland areas also gives raccoons fewer escape options, making them more vulnerable. Coyotes in these environments tend to hunt more and scavenge less.
In cities and suburbs, the dynamic shifts. Both species have access to abundant human-related food (garbage, pet food, compost, bird feeders), which reduces the pressure on coyotes to hunt difficult prey like raccoons. Urban coyotes tend to scavenge more heavily, and their diets often include a higher proportion of non-prey items. Raccoons are extremely common in urban areas, but coyotes there are less likely to hunt them actively when dumpsters and outdoor cat food bowls are easier options. That said, urban coyotes will still kill raccoons opportunistically, particularly young or sick ones.
Do Coyotes Control Raccoon Populations?
Coyotes do exert some predation pressure on raccoons, but they don’t typically control raccoon population size the way wolves control deer herds. Raccoons are prolific breeders, adaptable, and have high survival rates in suburban environments where food is abundant and escape cover (buildings, trees, storm drains) is everywhere. Coyote predation removes some individuals, especially juveniles, but raccoon populations in most areas remain robust even where coyotes are common.
The more significant effect may be behavioral rather than numerical. Coyote presence changes where and when raccoons forage, how alert they are, and how much energy they spend on vigilance rather than eating. Over time, this “landscape of fear” can influence raccoon health and reproduction indirectly, even if direct kills are relatively rare. In areas where coyotes have been removed or are absent, raccoon populations often increase and become bolder, which can lead to more conflicts with humans and greater nest predation on ground-nesting birds.