One of our sons was checking his traps in Utah and as he was approaching a small rise on the way to those traps he heard a ruckus. Upon reaching the top of the rise he saw a mule deer doe and what appeared to be a lion on her back but soon saw that it was a large coyote and two trailing coyotes following the action. As soon as the doe was down the other two trailing coyotes jumped on her and quickly started to eat and kill her.

He only had a .22lr pistol for dispatching critters in his traps and at the distance of 75-100 yards decided not to bother nor shoot at them. He had traps in the area that he readjusted for sets when they will come back to dine on her. She was a full size doe.

Some people dismiss the fact of coyotes preying on mule deer......perhaps they should listen better.

Interesting.

I've watched groups of deer on a field totally ignore a single coyote trotting by. They seem to take some note of two coyotes together. I suppose that coyotes become a real threat when three or more team up to hunt like a pack of their larger cousins, the gray wolves.

Larger groups of coyotes have been known to pull down young calves, despite the near presence of the mother cow. This almost exclusively happens in late winter/early spring in our part of the world when the rodent supply is at low ebb and very little of the vegetarian fare that coyotes will turn to is available.

Saw three coyotes separate a doe from a group of four deer. She put up a good defense with her front hooves for about 100yds., continually moving closer to us. About 70 yards from us she broke away quartering closer to us. At that distance from us the coyotes backed off. This was at the rifle range but none of us had unpacked our hardware yet. roger

Predation has decimated our mule deer population here in NM.

Wolves, coyotes, mountain lion, bears.

The figure I've heard is 80% of fawns do not survive.