Wow... quite a response. I have no problem killing coyotes. I've killed of few myself when I used to trap. I just think they deserve more respect than to be made a scapegoat. I have to laugh when I hear people say they have to be "controlled" or "managed" as it will never happen as a result of recreational or sport hunting. Mortality rates have to exceed 70% of the adult population to cause a population decline due to a phenomonon known as compensatory reproduction. i.e. birth rates increase when mortality rates increase. They do this through actual increase in litter size, but probably moreso through the breakdown of social constraints on breeding behavior. When coyote densities are high, and there are few vacant territories, young will delay dispersal and remain in their birth range with their parents for a year or two, forming family groups or "packs." They forgo their own breeding opportunities to remain with their parents and assist with the raising of siblings. Kill the alpa pair, and the social structure breaks down and you now have two or three females breeding where previously you had only one. In this way, coyotes can overcome a very high mortality rate. I collared 19 coyotes in the Lake Champlain Valley in Upstate NY. Coyote hunters who used hounds were very active there and routinely removed 35-70 coyotes from my study area every year. They took a good many of my study animals.
I found that coyotes that lived in the ag lands fed mostly on small mammals and livestock carrion. In the bigger woods areas closer to the Adirondacks, deer were a more important part of their diet. Probably because smaller game was less abundant in mature forests and the pack forming behavior in these areas (which were largely ignored by coyote hunters) enable more efficient hunting of deer.
Coyote depredation on livestock and game can be controlled, but only through intensive effort on a relatively small scale. Integrated management programs incorporating trapping, snaring, calling and shooting, selective toxicants and aerial gunning from aircraft can reduce livestock and game depredations in small areas (lambing pastures and fawning grounds) when applied immediately prior to the spring fawning/lambing season. Do not confuse coyote depredation control with coyote population control...they are two different things.
I saw several references to "how they got here." Importations probably were a significant source of coyotes in the southeastern US. Not through covert DNR operations as I often hear, but rather by houndsmen who release fox and coyotes into pens to train their hounds. Funny thing happens when trees fall on fences. They collapse and the critters escape. Its a big business in the southeast and the live market for coyotes brings far more than their furs. In the northeast, coyotes established themselves as the western population expanded northward and eastward in the absence of wolves. Some interbreeding with remnant wolf populations in southern Ontario may have occurred, allowing for their larger body weight and addition of wolf genes. They are movers... one female coyote I collared in November of 94 in Plattsburgh, NY was killed the following spring on I-95 on the seacoast in New Hampshire, over 200 miles away as the crow flies.
I find that population densities are often grossly over estimated as well. A pack of 4-7 coyotes could clean up a deer in a few hours. Coyotes and wolves can consume massive quantities (10-15 lbs)of meat in short amounts of time. I've often wondered how many of those 65# coyotes are actually 50# coyotes with 15 pounds of venison in their stomachs... Average weights of eastern coyotes run 30-40 for females and 40-50 for males. I hate to think that there are professional wildlifers out there telling people it would take 40 coyotes to reduce a deer to bones in a couple hours. Just remember, many of your conservation officers are not necessarily wildlife experts. The harmonies created by a howling pack of 5-7 coyotes often makes it sound like many more than that. Very few family groups exceed 8 coyotes, and in high density populations in high quality habitat, territories are 2-3 square miles. To see 27 coyotes at once would be a mindboggling experience and a biological anomaly worthy of documentation in the wildlife journals!
Feel free to kill them, just don't expect it to make a difference. Reminds me of the Doritos commercial... eat all you want we'll make more! On a regional scale, coyotes are probably not negatively impacting game species to the degree some sportsmen beleive. There are many cases where game populations have increased in the presence of coyotes. It just doesn't get reported cause who'se gonna complain? Sure, on a local level they can and do have an impact, at least short term and I can see one being frustrated if it happens to be your farm they impact. Love em or hate em, they are a fascinating critter and deserve our respect. The volume of responses here suggest that most do appreciate them in one way or another.
Topic: Coyote pups,,, pics (Read 9417 times)
