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Coyotes... Shoot or pass?

I must admit, I was a shoot 'em all guy. In recent years I have realized that the 4 or 5 I've killed in my lifetime don't mean squat in the big picture of deer/coyote interaction. As others have said, I try not to shoot what I don't use and I have no use for a yote so I've changed my outlook on that. The same thing transformation has occurred with respect to porcupines. I used to shoot them all without regard but in recent years I let them go their own way. I did notice this year that yote numbers seemed to be down in the area I hunt most frequently. I saw fewer tracks and heard fewer evening howls. Overall deer numbers appeared to be down some as well so , IMO anyway, its possible that they are self regulating.

I also have to admit, since I changed from hunting remote from a popup tent camper to a hard side, I definitely miss hearing the pack howling in the middle of the night. A sound that used to just completely freak me out as a youngster has weirdly become something I look forward to hearing.
 
Coyote howls are nothing till you hear a red fox or bobcat/cougar calling.

I dont shoot em if I see em when deer hunting. Unless its mangey im keeping the hides. Even SE Ohio coyotes have some good value occasionally. I mainly trap/snare coyotes and occassionally can get a farmer to pay me to do so(im a licensed nuisance trapper as one of my many side jobs)
 
raisins said:
From the article's intro:

"But here’s something most deer hunters hate to hear: No matter how many coyotes you shoot, they’ll still be hell on fawns.
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coyotes kill some fawns. bears probably kill some more when they are around, cars and trucks likely kill more than both. good thing is that deer are pretty good at making more deer, really good actually. areas of my state that have the most coyotes also have the most deer too. Bottom line, coyote predation is not an influencing factor on deer abundance where i live, and probably isn't where you or anyone else lives either. at least no one has ever been able to demonstrate that, except hunters on on-line forums haha. habitat quality and human based mortality are more influential on deer numbers.

I mean think about it. where i live deer coexisted with wolves and mountain lions and black bears and bobcats etc... How did they ever survive? of course many people would indicated that mountain lions are alive and well here in New England, so much so that we should all be terrified to enter the darkness every morning or evening while hunting. but that's the source of another 100 page thread! :cool:
 
davecarp said:
coyotes kill some fawns. bears probably kill some more when they are around, cars and trucks likely kill more than both. good thing is that deer are pretty good at making more deer, really good actually. areas of my state that have the most coyotes also have the most deer too. Bottom line, coyote predation is not an influencing factor on deer abundance where i live, and probably isn't where you or anyone else lives either. at least no one has ever been able to demonstrate that, except hunters on on-line forums haha. habitat quality and human based mortality are more influential on deer numbers.

I mean think about it. where i live deer coexisted with wolves and mountain lions and black bears and bobcats etc... How did they ever survive? of course many people would indicated that mountain lions are alive and well here in New England, so much so that we should all be terrified to enter the darkness every morning or evening while hunting. but that's the source of another 100 page thread! :cool:
Click to expand...

I'm cool with it so long as we get to hunt those predators too. WV has a really nice coyote policy (unlimited and can hunt at night), and I'm going to start.

Somebody did a study advocating introducing red wolves into WV, basically something like a coyote that is endangered so we can't touch it. I hope that doesn't happen.
 
yeah predator re-introductions are widely controversial. ask folks up in wolf country across the midwest/west. nuff said. in a lot of ways eastern coyotes have evolved in a way to functionally replace red wolves, but let the biologists wrassle with that.
 
raisins said:
I'm cool with it so long as we get to hunt those predators too. WV has a really nice coyote policy (unlimited and can hunt at night), and I'm going to start.

Somebody did a study advocating introducing red wolves into WV, basically something like a coyote that is endangered so we can't touch it. I hope that doesn't happen.
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How recent was that? I thought that they finally figured out Red Wolves were just hybrids?
 
davecarp said:
yeah predator re-introductions are widely controversial. ask folks up in wolf country across the midwest/west. nuff said. in a lot of ways eastern coyotes have evolved in a way to functionally replace red wolves, but let the biologists wrassle with that.
Click to expand...

My Dad's buddy had a nice take on it "didn't we already have this competition and humans won?"
 
davecarp said:
coyotes kill some fawns. bears probably kill some more when they are around, cars and trucks likely kill more than both. good thing is that deer are pretty good at making more deer, really good actually. areas of my state that have the most coyotes also have the most deer too. Bottom line, coyote predation is not an influencing factor on deer abundance where i live, and probably isn't where you or anyone else lives either. at least no one has ever been able to demonstrate that, except hunters on on-line forums haha. habitat quality and human based mortality are more influential on deer numbers.

I mean think about it. where i live deer coexisted with wolves and mountain lions and black bears and bobcats etc... How did they ever survive? of course many people would indicated that mountain lions are alive and well here in New England, so much so that we should all be terrified to enter the darkness every morning or evening while hunting. but that's the source of another 100 page thread! :cool:
Click to expand...

Well said. Funny how we all think we are wildlife biologists and epidemiologists online.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
JSEXTON23 said:
The harm would be increasing litter size and dispersing the pack leading to more coyotes and a larger range. Defeating your objective and likely resulting in more dead house cats. Which, in my opinion, I shoot stray cats like some of you guys shoot coyotes. They kill millions of song birds, who have a place in the ecosystem just like coyotes.

I do find the psychology interesting of people who want to kill every coyote because they hurt the deer population seem to ignore the science that shows hunting them more often then not leads to higher populations and broader ranges of coyotes. Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The reality is the whitetail deer population is higher than it’s ever been, and so are coyotes populations. Hunt them, don’t hunt them. You’re still going to have coyotes chasing deer.
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"Dispersing the pack". Like dispersing the pack to elsewhere other than my back yard where my cat hangs out? Yes.
 
raisins said:
Absolutely. I even kill spiders humanely when possible and even throw them outside when feasible.
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Ridiculous. Then you shouldn't be driving your vehicle cause you likely take out thousands of insects a year. Also,yes I know spiders are not considered insects.
 
DroptineKrazy said:
"Dispersing the pack". Like dispersing the pack to elsewhere other than my back yard where my cat hangs out? Yes.
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By that logic it should be ok for me to disperse your cat from my backyard. I'm guessing your cat understands property boundaries though, so it would never venture anywhere it isn't welcome.
 
As far as coyote litter sizes increasing, have to call BS on that. One, it implies that surviving coyotes know that they are being pressured. If I eliminate the resident coyotes on farm A, how would the other coyotes in the township know?

It would be more accurate to say that that pup survival rate does go up as prey is more available. Litter size can increase all they want it but no food means no pups make it to fall.

And because coyotes disperse every year, with some exceptions, they will fill gaps caused by harvest so it may look like you're not having an effect.

You can kill enough coyotes to make a difference, happens all the time on the large hunting properties down south where they pay trappers to take care of coyotes and bobcats. Problem is usually by the time the coyote population gets sparse is when the owners stop paying because your not catching the same amount of predators as in years past.
 
JSEXTON23 said:
By that logic it should be ok for me to disperse your cat from my backyard. I'm guessing your cat understands property boundaries though, so it would never venture anywhere it isn't welcome.
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What the heck are you talking about. My cat hangs right around my dooryard. Coyotes don't belong in my dooryard. My territory.
 
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