The Other Deer Hunters
Field and Stream ^ | February 09, 2011 | Scott Bestul

Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 7:07:37 PM by SJackson

As whitetail predators, coyotes may be more destructive than ever.

If you think coyotes aren’t killing a lot of deer, you’re not alone. You’re also probably wrong. Significant coyote predation has been documented in various parts of the whitetail’s range. But throughout much of the South, Midwest, and suburban Northeast, the coyote is a fairly new predator and is barely on the radar of many whitetail hunters and experts.

In over three decades of deer hunting and observation, I had personally come to view them as bumbling opportunists—more Wile E. Coyote than the Big Bad Wolf—when it comes to killing whitetails. But a pair of new research papers presented at the February 2009 meeting of the Southeast Deer Study Group, both conducted where coyotes had not historically been a problem, reveal a different story. What’s more, with coyotes now virtually everywhere whitetails are, and their numbers exploding in many areas, their impact is likely more lethal than ever.

The New Research In the first study, conducted by John C. Kilgo with the USDA in west-central South Carolina from 2006 to 2008, researchers implanted vaginal transmitters in pregnant does. When a doe gave birth, the transmitter was ejected along with the fawn, allowing researchers to capture the newborn deer and fit it with a monitor. When a fawn died, the monitor led researchers to the remains, where they collected DNA evidence to ID the fawn’s killer.

The results were jaw-dropping. Out of the 60 fawns monitored, 44 died within eight weeks. The killers were abandonment (one), unknown predators (two), bobcats (six), and coyotes (28 confirmed and seven probables). In other words, if you include the probables, coyotes accounted for 80 percent of all mortality.

The second study was conducted by Brent Howze and Robert Warren of the University of Georgia on a 29,000-acre area of the Peach State with a low fawn-to-doe ratio. To determine whether predation was causing poor fawn recruitment, researchers removed 23 coyotes from an 11,000-acre study block from January through August 2008. On a 7,000-acre control block of similar habitat, no predators were removed. In the fall, camera surveys showed a meager .07-to-1 fawn-to-doe ratio in the control area. In the zone where predators had been trapped, however, the ratio was a vastly better .72-to-1.

“Coyote predation is the big issue right now,” declares noted University of Georgia deer researcher Dr. Karl V. Miller, who supervised the second study. “It’s something we must take more seriously in whitetail management going forward.”

So what can you do? First, aim for a balanced buck-to-doe ratio on your property. It ensures a short, intense breeding season, which results in a short, intense fawn drop—and that narrows the window of opportunity for coyotes to kill young deer. Second, encourage grassy, brushy, young growth so does can drop fawns in comparatively predator-safe cover. Third, if you notice an upswing in local coyote numbers, you may want to decrease your doe harvest. Finally, become a coyote hunter. You’ll help keep predator numbers in check, and have a lot of fun, too. .



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1 posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 7:07:42 PM by SJackson
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I'm glad the writer and the folks back east are figuring out that coyotes kill a lot of deer?!?

I have to admit that there are still hunters and ranchers here in Texas that will argue the point with you....

The usual number quoted by Wildlife Biologists is that coyotes kill off an average of 25% of the fawn crop annually.

Bob

Is there a shortage of whitetails in Texas?

Not trying to argue with you, but coyotes have been eating whitetail fawns for as long as they've co-existed and the deer pop in most parts of Texas is pretty darn good, if not too good, isn't it?

We've tried to exterminate coyotes from the west for the past 75 years. Traps, poison, shooting, aerial gunning and burning through millions of dollars have equated into the continuation of healthy coyote populations. All this effort to control them and they are still expanding into new areas.
I like hunting coyotes, but if you're naive enough to think that you're doing any good for a deer herd by killing an animal that's own population is density dependant you sadly mistaken.

First off, let me say I have no problem with shooting cyotes. But, for a little different point of view, There are plenty of mornings I can look out in my hay fields and count up to 50 head of deer eating alfalfa, and a couple cyotes hunting mice.Do the math.

I kill all I can but I've read studies that indicate that shooting (calling) is the least effective control.

quote:

Originally posted by wasbeeman:
I kill all I can but I've read studies that indicate that shooting (calling) is the least effective control.

You're right. Once a coyote has been called in and if you miss, that "yote" will never come to a call again. Maybe if you use a different call that what you used but I've never seen them come back once they're been shot at and missed.
Paul B.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul B:

quote:

Originally posted by wasbeeman:
I kill all I can but I've read studies that indicate that shooting (calling) is the least effective control.

You're right. Once a coyote has been called in and if you miss, that "yote" will never come to a call again. Maybe if you use a different call that what you used but I've never seen them come back once they're been shot at and missed.
Paul B.

Too true. I called 'em, dogged 'em, and trapped 'em. I truly believe that an old bitch can teach her pups to avoid certain sets and calls. By the same token, when the pups start running on their own, if you trap one, the others will sometimes hang around. I've trapped three at one time in a gang set. I have also doubled shooting them when it was young yotes.
When yotes first started showing up on the east coast, the fox trappers thought they would make a show but many of them were disappointed. As one veteran coyote trapper said, "they ain't no dumb coyotes."

Just another varmint to hunt year 'round. Regardless of intent, have at it fella's. I have friends in AR that use their highly trained dogs and they are good at it.
Good shooting,
LDK

Coyotes are a problem every where. On our lease we hunt them all year, even during deer season they are targets on opportunity.

I have been hunting the same property here in southern Wisconsin for 16 years now, and spend a great deal of time on it all year round, including early in the spring turkey hunting. Although we have a fair number of coyotes on this and adjoining properties (I've seen them and see tracks all winter) I have only once found the remains of a deer carcass that might have been a coyote kill (it was just a pile of hair and scattered bones by the time I found it, so it could just as easily have been a car kill where the deer made if off the raod and into the woods before dying.) I don't have a problem with people hunting the coyotes (as long as they have permission to be on the property!) but I doubt they have any significant impact on the size of the deer herd in our area.

I watched a Coyote try to take down a Mule Deer Doe for almost 3 hours. The Yote finally gave up and walked off!!!