Sorry about the loss of your dog Jack. On two occaisions, I have almost lost a dog to coyotes.(inside my fenced in backyard)
Personally I believe that any info gathered about coyotes from the eighties is useless info today. Coyotes are not the same animal that they once were. I have seen a drastic change in my area in a very short time frame.
I also believe that since coyotes are obviously thriving everywhere they live, ANY state agency that spends even ONE penny of taxpayers money to study coyotes needs to be held accountable to the very people who pay the bills. There is no money for necessities, let alone studying the habits of the coyote.
Indeed, the availabilty of food and disease are the only REAL population control for coyotes.
God bless the trappers and dog hunters.
I have killed my share by accidental encounters and I have killed a what I beleive to be my share that I have called in. It took me seven years of trying to finally call one in. I have learned alot, but the coyote learns much faster.
I read every post, and thought about it alot, and I am pretty sure I HATE them.(honesty is the best policy...right?) They are a real threat to game populations, and non-game species as well.
I killed the big male that almost caught my daughters weiner dog, and I would hate them even more if he had. He was NOT doing what coyotes do, because if he was "doing what coyotes do" he would be afraid to show himself in daylight, and he certainly wouldn`t be in my BACKYARD trying to catch and eat my daughters dog. Coyotes are SUPPOSED to be skinny, secretive, mostly NOCTURNAL, rodent eating, mange carrying varmints. What they are now is a far cry from that.
I wouldn`t miss their screaming out my bedroom window one little bit...not one little bit.