"Compensatory Reproduction" in Coyotes, why killing them equals more coyotes and less deer

[Dave N]

We didnt have any coyotes to speak of back then around here. But my old man tells stories of guys fist fighting over road killed fur on the side of the road back then.

$20 for a road kill coon! Good money at the time.

 

[antlerradar]

I remember my Uncle taking dozens and dozens, heck maybe even hundreds of coyotes from Shelby to Great Falls to sell at about that time frame. He ran cranes and killed coyotes in the winter. If you were a coyotes around Shelby, Montana back then, your life was in grave danger. mtmuley

My father would team up with a guy that shot coyotes from his Piper Cub with buck shot and take bids from fur buyers. Dad would have maybe 50, the guy with the cub would have in the hundreds.

 

[psinclair]

Where’s @psinclair?

Lining up a helicopter flight...

Busiest time of year for me, with 100,000 mother cows calving in my district.

 

[VioletCrown]

I read the article and while it provides some interesting observations it completely lacks scientific evidence to support the claim that reducing shooting coyotes will not positively impact your deer herd. That doesn't mean its not true but they have not shown it with any significant level of evidence. I do question the authors claim that "as a landowner or hunter, you simply do not have the means to decrease the coyote population on your property". Years ago with the help of the UDSA placing M-44's and snares (and us calling/shooting) we were able to reduce their population. I do agree that putting efforts into management and habitat will likely have a greater impact on increasing population... but that is pretty obvious.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I read the article and while it provides some interesting observations it completely lacks scientific evidence to support the claim that reducing shooting coyotes will not positively impact your deer herd. That doesn't mean its not true but they have not shown it with any significant level of evidence. I do question the authors claim that "as a landowner or hunter, you simply do not have the means to decrease the coyote population on your property". Years ago with the help of the UDSA placing M-44's and snares (and us calling/shooting) we were able to reduce their population. I do agree that putting efforts into management and habitat will likely have a greater impact on increasing population... but that is pretty obvious.

My focus and efforts are going elsewhere this morning,,,bending my new knee, no pain no gain right. One attempt to get all the ROM at once won't work. It takes a repeated broad based progressive program firmly dedicated to.

Let's have ROM equal RANGE OF MIND and apply that not just to Coyotes but also to predators in general, and doing this also involves no pain no gain for hunters.

A lot of our practices have not worked. Or they only worked in what turned out to be a very narrow time frame or point of view.

There is a whole new wave of field biologists, armed with a dazzling array of new tools and techniques for information gathering. They are deeply examining the relationships between predators, prey animals, scavengers too and diseases of wildlife, some which transfer to us.

Creating healthy ecosystems goes so far beyond shooting, poisoning and trapping coyotes.

"Compensatory Immigration of predators " is another worthy area of field natural history to examine too.

Later if you wish ? or !

MR

 

[Bonasababy]

I read the article and while it provides some interesting observations it completely lacks scientific evidence to support the claim that reducing shooting coyotes will not positively impact your deer herd. That doesn't mean its not true but they have not shown it with any significant level of evidence. I do question the authors claim that "as a landowner or hunter, you simply do not have the means to decrease the coyote population on your property". Years ago with the help of the UDSA placing M-44's and snares (and us calling/shooting) we were able to reduce their population. I do agree that putting efforts into management and habitat will likely have a greater impact on increasing population... but that is pretty obvious.

What some don't realize is that the articles findings are settled science. From before many on the board were born.

Studies have shown the same thing for decades.

And beyond that, predation isn't a single species thing...thats particularly true for coyotes, where reducing their population temporarily favors foxes, who are a much more impactful predator of game birds and ground nesting waterfowl.

So target them all, you might say? That too has been studied and not shown to be possible at a large scale for common predators..the hole created by their loss is soon filled.

And it takes a much more intensive, year round effort to even create a temporary hole.

Habitat creation and maintenance on the other hand has long lasting positive effects.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

What some don't realize is that the articles findings are settled science. From before many on the board were born.

Studies have shown the same thing for decades.

And beyond that, predation isn't a single species thing...thats particularly true for coyotes, where reducing their population temporarily favors foxes, who are a much more impactful predator of game birds and ground nesting waterfowl.

So target them all, you might say? That too has been studied and not shown to be possible at a large scale for common predators..the hole created by their loss is soon filled.

And it takes a much more intensive, year round effort to even create a temporary hole.

Habitat creation and maintenance on the other hand has long lasting positive effects.

April 27/1962. The famous Twilight Zone series aired an episode titled The Gift.
In it a benevolent humanoid alien crashes lands on earth in Mexico, gets in a confrontation with terrified locals, they try to kill him, he fights back kills one of them before dying, but in his last moments alive he keeps trying to give them a book/ a medical journal, which they burn thinking it is evil.

The last scene shows to the book title, "The Cure for Human Cancer" being consumed amidst the flames.

I live in a 3,000 square mile county in the PNW, which has roughly 7,500 people, 15,500 elk, 21,000 deer and no detectable CWD and Elk Hoof rot.

Many scream too many wolves are here, but from my biologist's window the entire predator guild seems about right for natural predator bioremediation disease control in deer and elk.

In what seemed like a bright and shining moment during the last administration, over $30,000,000 was dedicated for CDW research at one of the best Vet Schools in the west.

Exciting CWD research was happening all over the mountain west helping to denature misinformation.

For example it was being stated that predators spread CWD prions when they killed and ate animals with CWD.

But quantitative research found this to only be correct to the 3.5% level The body chemistry of predators totally destroyed 96.5 % of the CWD Prions.

Predators naturally select out prey animals with CWD.

Back to Compensatory Reproduction and Compensatory Immigration of predators, these are bedrock field biology standards.

The greatest studies regarding "CR" and "CI" with mountain lions have come from Vancouver Is Canada, which is the Mt Lion hunting capitol of Norh America, with the highest Mt Lion density in North America.

Unfortunately, the population is soaring with sub-adult males. If one big Tom Mt Lion was left alone in each bio-territory he would drive out and kill these young male lions, and less deer would be killed.

Add to this, with a super high young male lion population, Vancouver Is, sets the records for Mt Lion attacks on livestock and people.

We have now gone back to era in which we just "burn knowledge" via denial smothering it with mis-information.

 

[Bonasababy]

Lions are certainly another good example. Older animals maintain and defend larger territories. Take them out and they get replaced by less experienced, more prone to cause trouble animals and more of them than when you started because of the smaller territories.

None of this is to say that taking predators is a problem, when it can justified as not affecting their population--which is most of the time where harvest is regulated--and in other cases where it's nearly impossible to drive their numbers down much.

Just have to know saying it helps prey out, minimizes human problems etc. isn't well grounded in science at all, in fact it can often be the reverse.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Older animals maintain and defend larger territories. Take them out and they get replaced by less experienced, more prone to cause trouble animals and more of them than when you started because of the smaller territories.

This is true of all males, especially humans.

 

[Forkyfinder]

The good news - i can shoot coyotes and tell my liberal cousin that it produces more of then.

It isnt ultimately "saving the deer or "harming" them to shoot one when a deer hunt happens to turn into a coyote hunt. I let them go sometimes. Not others. Never really drew the conclusion i had made a meaningful difference when i kill one.

Contrary to the article - I do feel that things like coyote hunting contests, in the dead of winter, with thermals, advanced tech, and enough people doing it in a concentrated area would seemingly make a difference though.

A key part of the link mentions that you are wasting your time hunting coyotes on your 40 or 400 acres - i dont think much scientific analysis is required to reach that conclusion, and i agree with it. What i dont see mentioned or studied/referenced is several groups of people, especially 24 hrs a day, targetting them and hunting them hard at specific times (ie during fawning or cold/snow) over a large area, ie square miles.

Any scientific study may or may not be apllicable depending on the parameters of the study. Does anyone have a study that truly closely matches what i am referencing?

What i could find seems to support others conclusion (and mine earlier) and is scientific - research at BYU:

Frontiers | Both temporal and spatial aspects of predator management influence survival of a temperate ungulate through early life

Recent meta-analyses indicate that predator removal experiments result in marginal increases in prey abundance at best. However, most predator removal studie...

www.frontiersin.org

Im still probably squeezing on some coyotes, either way ... seperately it made me vomit to cite a BYU study.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

This is true of all males, especially humans.

Knock out the big drug lord kingpin, it creates a power vacuum filled by lots of punks. Then violence increases.

 

[El Jason]

I do feel that things like coyote hunting contests, in the dead of winter, with thermals, advanced tech, and enough people doing it in a concentrated area would seemingly make a difference though.

Intense coyote hunting needs to be timed with fawn drop to have any meaningful effect on deer populations.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Intense coyote hunting needs to be timed with fawn drop to have any meaningful effect on deer populations.

You are probably right about what you just said, but so is another fellow on hunt talk who said that with less coyotes, there will be more foxes and other lowest level predators that do not get eaten and will raid ground bird nests eating quail, grouse and chukar eggs, so less of them.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

The good news - i can shoot coyotes and tell my liberal cousin that it produces more of then.

It isnt ultimately "saving the deer or "harming" them to shoot one when a deer hunt happens to turn into a coyote hunt. I let them go sometimes. Not others. Never really drew the conclusion i had made a meaningful difference when i kill one.

Contrary to the article - I do feel that things like coyote hunting contests, in the dead of winter, with thermals, advanced tech, and enough people doing it in a concentrated area would seemingly make a difference though.

A key part of the link mentions that you are wasting your time hunting coyotes on your 40 or 400 acres - i dont think much scientific analysis is required to reach that conclusion, and i agree with it. What i dont see mentioned or studied/referenced is several groups of people, especially 24 hrs a day, targetting them and hunting them hard at specific times (ie during fawning or cold/snow) over a large area, ie square miles.

Any scientific study may or may not be apllicable depending on the parameters of the study. Does anyone have a study that truly closely matches what i am referencing?

What i could find seems to support others conclusion (and mine earlier) and is scientific - research at BYU:

Frontiers | Both temporal and spatial aspects of predator management influence survival of a temperate ungulate through early life

Recent meta-analyses indicate that predator removal experiments result in marginal increases in prey abundance at best. However, most predator removal studie...

www.frontiersin.org

Im still probably squeezing on some coyotes, either way ... seperately it made me vomit to cite a BYU study.

Here is study and conclusion about the origin of Lymes Disease done by the Yale School of Medicine and Public Health.

Ancient History of Lyme Disease in North America Revealed with Bacterial Genomes

A team of researchers led by the Yale School of Public Health has found that the Lyme disease bacterium is ancient in North America, circulating silently in

medicine.yale.edu

Yale University is in Connecticut which is where Lymes Disease was first diagnosed and discovered. Yale's conclusion is that the disease has been there for 60,000 years hidden and contained and that the near total lack of predators was the driving factor in creating this national epidemic level disease.

Any study of Lyme's Disease reveals that mice, and other small rodents carry Lymes Disease and are equally responsible for the epidemic. and here comes the pro predator facts.

The disease erupted and spread not just because of a lack of large/medium predators controlling the deer population, but also because there was a lack of small predators controlling the rodent population.

I grew up in rural Connecticut and the only predators left were the red foxes released by the rich mounted fox hunting clubs.

The war against predators had gone on so successfully since the colonial era that there was no functional diverse predator guild to control disease carrying animals large, smaller and even tiny like the white footed mouse, which in many areas is the main carrier of Lymes.

The major point at hand, is that hunters have been led to believe that all predators are bad and killing them by hunting or trapping is a good, even noble endeavor.

I used to live in Wyoming and recall a time when you could look at a map of where wolves were, and where CWD was, and they were totally opposite.

SE Wyoming has no established wolf packs and CWD has hit a record high there of 43% in deer.

What is so hard to understand about the solid field biology fact, that predator's prey most heavily on the old and the sick and are the wildlife clean-up crew.

Another example of anti-predator madness involves the Mulchatna Caribou Herd in Alaska. In the 1990's it numbered 200,000. Now it is down to 12,000.

Brucellosis is 30% endemic in the herd. This disease causes fertility rates to plummet and effects leg joints to the point where Caribou hobble around with swollen legs.

To deal with this crashing population the Alaska Fish and Game Department keeps calling for more and more, year after year predator culling campaigns, which just keep making the problem worse and worse.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I left Connecticut in 1972. Had a new little camper van and just headed west into the Rocky Mountains in the fall. It got cold so i headed into our SW deserts. I decided to spend the winter camping on BLM public land and working as a carpenter on a winter desert retirement condominium project.

Came to find out that at the base of remote desert mountain there was a really cool cabin owned by an old gold miner who died. His relatives were hoping to get somebody to stay there so it was not vandalized. I was their man, free rent too.

There was a rough back canyon jeep trail that was a short cut to the Condo project where I was working and with the old miner's cabin came the use of his mid 1950's Dodge 4 X 4 Power Wagon.

I was making good money and had lots of time off to explore these mountains since we worked 4 10 hour days.

There were some dry grassy higher meadows, but they lacked enough water for cattle, so they were left ungrazed. The deer took them over. Lots of deer,

Everywhere I went and explored in this set of desert mountains, I kept crossing the tracks of one big tom Mt Lion. I got really meticulous about measuring all the details of his tracks so i could be positive I was tracking him anywhere in this area. There were a few female lions in his territory which he let alone but never once did I see the tracks of juvenal male lions in his territory which he would kill or run off 24-7.

I did see lots of deer and desert bighorn sheep.

This was undisturbed desert ecology at its best.

 

[Bonasababy]

Here is study and conclusion about the origin of Lymes Disease done by the Yale School of Medicine and Public Health.

Ancient History of Lyme Disease in North America Revealed with Bacterial Genomes

A team of researchers led by the Yale School of Public Health has found that the Lyme disease bacterium is ancient in North America, circulating silently in

medicine.yale.edu

Yale University is in Connecticut which is where Lymes Disease was first diagnosed and discovered. Yale's conclusion is that the disease has been there for 60,000 years hidden and contained and that the near total lack of predators was the driving factor in creating this national epidemic level disease.

Any study of Lyme's Disease reveals that mice, and other small rodents carry Lymes Disease and are equally responsible for the epidemic. and here comes the pro predator facts.

The disease erupted and spread not just because of a lack of large/medium predators controlling the deer population, but also because there was a lack of small predators controlling the rodent population.

I grew up in rural Connecticut and the only predators left were the red foxes released by the rich mounted fox hunting clubs.

The war against predators had gone on so successfully since the colonial era that there was no functional diverse predator guild to control disease carrying animals large, smaller and even tiny like the white footed mouse, which in many areas is the main carrier of Lymes.

The major point at hand, is that hunters have been led to believe that all predators are bad and killing them by hunting or trapping is a good, even noble endeavor.

I used to live in Wyoming and recall a time when you could look at a map of where wolves were, and where CWD was, and they were totally opposite.

SE Wyoming has no established wolf packs and CWD has hit a record high there of 43% in deer.

What is so hard to understand about the solid field biology fact, that predator's prey most heavily on the old and the sick and are the wildlife clean-up crew.

Another example of anti-predator madness involves the Mulchatna Caribou Herd in Alaska. In the 1990's it numbered 200,000. Now it is down to 12,000.

Brucellosis is 30% endemic in the herd. This disease causes fertility rates to plummet and effects leg joints to the point where Caribou hobble around with swollen legs.

To deal with this crashing population the Alaska Fish and Game Department keeps calling for more and more, year after year predator culling campaigns, which just keep making the problem worse and worse.

I believe AK is trying to reduce calf predation rates. There is research to suggest that at very low prey densities, some predators can prolong recovery of a population through calf predation.

I also recall hearing climate change has played a role in declining habitat quality...these things are rarely simple cause and effect.