What does it mean when a Coyote yawns? Sometimes it means the Coyote is tired, or waking up, just like with humans. That’ll usually be accompanied by stretching. I’ve seen young Coyotes yawn as part of a greeting for their mother. In that case, there was also a lot of smiling.
Coyotes will also yawn when stressed, or as a sort of pacifying gesture to another, potentially aggressive, canine. It doesn’t mean submission. It’s more “let’s live and let live; there’s nothing worth fighting about here.” There wasn’t any smiling or stretching going on and this Coyote was in an urban park with lots of dogs being walked, so it was probably the latter.