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Understanding the drivers of population dynamics informs management actions and assures the public that harvest activities are not detrimental to the long-term stability of wildlife populations. We examined the survival and cause-specific mortality of 66 adult coyotes (34 males, 32 females) using GPS radiotelemetry in southwestern Wisconsin during October 2016 to March 2020. We paired our study with a literature review of coyote survival and mortality across the United States and Canada, focusing on the geographical distribution of studies, demographic aspects of survival, and the level of exploitation by humans on coyote populations. In Wisconsin, annual survival did not differ between sexes or across years but did vary among seasons and social statuses. The relative risk for a coyote dying was higher during the winter compared to the summer. A transient coyote had a higher relative risk of mortality compared to a resident coyote. Mean annual survival probability (sexes combined) was higher for a year-long resident compared to a year-long transient. The predominant sources of known mortality (n = 37) were harvest (83.8%) and vehicle collisions (13.5%). For our literature review, we identified 56 studies estimating coyote survival or mortality from 1971 to 2021 spanning the geographic range of coyotes. We found no distinct temporal or regional patterns in survival probability or the proportion of human-induced mortality, although fewer studies originated from the northeast region of the United States. Additionally, we detected weak correlation between survival probability and proportion of human-induced mortality, suggesting coyote harvest may be compensatory. Although our findings indicate that the Wisconsin coyote population had relatively higher human-induced mortality than populations in other regions, these mortality rates appear to be sustainable for this population under current landscape and habitat conditions.

River otter populations have expanded across much of their historical range, including in Illinois where they were reintroduced from 1994 to 1997. These expanding populations are recolonizing a wide range of landscapes with different levels of human modification, which could influence how river otters use space in relation to habitat characteristics and each other. Our objectives were to quantify 1) home ranges and core areas, 2) sociality, and 3) habitat selection across all available habitats and within home ranges (second- and third-order selection, respectively) of 22 radiomarked river otters (Lontra canadensis) in southern Illinois during 2014–2016. Our study area contained a diverse mix of forest, agriculture, aquatic and wetland habitats, and a range of urban development intensity. We examined sociality using the frequency at which individuals were located < 25 m from a conspecific and compared home-range overlap among individuals based on sex. Habitat selection at the second and third order was analyzed using an eigen-analysis of selection ratios based on landcover categories. Similar to other studies, male river otters had > 2-fold larger home ranges and core areas than females in southern Illinois. Several lines of evidence indicated males were more social than females. Males were located close to a conspecific more frequently than were females, and overlap of home ranges and core areas among males was greater than it was among females or between sexes. As observed in other landscapes, river otters strongly selected herbaceous and wooded wetlands at both second- and third-order scales. River otters selected terrestrial cover types with vegetative cover potentially due to shelter or prey availability. Forests were selected over crop fields at the third-order scale, which was consistent with studies using sign surveys. River otters in our study had home ranges containing 0–40% developed land cover, but we found no evidence that otters living in more developed areas used their home ranges more selectively. River otters in this landscape were plastic in regard to social behavior and habitat selection, highlighting their generalist nature and providing insight into their ability to successfully recolonize areas of the Midwest with sufficient vegetative cover and aquatic habitat, among other factors.