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Three coyotes filmed in vicious 40-minute brawl on cabin steps

rabha bourkab

Published on Oct 06, 2026

Security cameras caught three coyotes fighting for 40 minutes on the steps of a Lake Arrowhead cabin. Experts say it was a dominance display.

It began shortly after 1 a.m. — and it lasted 40 minutes.

Home security cameras outside a cabin in Lake Arrowhead, in California’s San Bernardino Mountains, captured three coyotes clashing just steps from the front door. The footage, recorded early Sunday, showed the animals racing across the property and confronting one another on a staircase that leads directly to the entrance.

David and Annette Simpson were not home when it happened. They discovered the encounter only after waking up and reviewing their surveillance footage.

“It started about 1 o’clock and ended about 1:40,” David Simpson told .

Why did the coyotes fight?

At first glance, the scene looks brutal. The animals snarl, snap and tumble around the steps, their bodies twisting in the dark.

But a coyote researcher says the brawl may have been about hierarchy rather than outright violence.

Christine Wilkinson, a coyote researcher and assistant curator of community science at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said the footage appears to show a social display in which dominance is being established.

One coyote seemed to act submissively — hunching its back, tucking its tail between its legs and baring its teeth. Wilkinson described that as an appeasement gesture, not necessarily an attack.

Were they strangers or family?

There are two leading explanations.

The first: the submissive coyote may have wandered into another pack’s territory and was trying to gain acceptance — or avoid being driven out.

The second: all three could belong to the same family group. Wilkinson suggested the animal may have been a “beta” coyote, one that eventually needs to leave its birth group, find its own territory and start a new pack.

“Young or subordinate animals eventually may need to leave their family group and establish territory of their own,” she explained.

A familiar sound in the mountains

For locals, the commotion was not entirely surprising.

Mountain resident Emma Cimino said coyotes are a regular presence around Lake Arrowhead, especially after dark.

“You can hear them at night howling and screaming and fighting,” Cimino said. “They run across the street there to the park from the hills.”

The Simpsons’ cameras have previously recorded bears, squirrels and other mountain wildlife. Still, the long and unusually close coyote encounter stood out.

“We wonder why our dog barks in the middle of the night and now we know,” Annette Simpson said.

Wildlife gets uncomfortably close

The couple enjoys watching animals near their cabin. But the video has changed how Annette thinks about letting her cats onto the patio.

“I’ll let them out, but now I’m having second thoughts,” she said.

The footage offers a rare, close-up look at coyote behavior — and a sharp reminder that in mountain communities, the wild is often only a staircase away.

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Three coyotes filmed in vicious 40-minute brawl on cabin steps

Why did the coyotes fight?

Were they strangers or family?

A familiar sound in the mountains

Wildlife gets uncomfortably close