Interesting article on predators

[theFox]

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I suspect that is a statistical tipping point in terms of the numbers to be sure of having mates--for example one needs 6 individuals to statistically be sure of having one of each sex. But, given that a young coyote will range 100 miles to find a new territory that means you'd have to clear a pretty big area.

Yeah, we can use lights here to hunt this time of year as well. However, if one is hunting with a shotgun they cannot carry slugs. Rifle is ok I guess so don't ask me why except the DEC frowns on jacking deer.

No lights needed here, just a call. I never could figure out the crazy thoughts of the game people.

That biologist is saying in effect that only 30% of the coyotes are needed for a stable population, that generally means that they are currently overpopulated, which leads to problems not only in finding suitable ranges but in avoiding major illness outbreaks.

They have major competition to the north in the form of timber wolves, given what I've been reading about the genetic makeup of what is here in New England perhaps the wolves are going to bread the coyote out of the coyote.

 

[Randy]

I don't care if more come back. I'll kill them too. Gives me something to do in the winter.

 

[Dogfish]

Slow one

For the fast ones, my son and I shooting some full auto goodness.

http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q233/mesoas/guns/?action=view&current=PB300009.mp4

And for the long range ones

Wildlife management through superior firepower.

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

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No - he's saying that 30% of the population is needed to keep the whole thing from crashing. If they were brought down to 30% of where they are now they'd go the rest of the way down by themselves. That's what happened to most of the wolf and bison population (and passenger pigeon); it wasn't that they were hunted until the last one died. It was that they were hunted until they reached a certain percentage of their population that ceased to be self-sustaining and then they died off on their own.

The population as it stands is not an overpopulation; coyotes are extremely skilled at living on animals that thrive at the transition from field to woods, where there's ample growing stuff. The deep (mature, climax) woods is actually pretty hard to live in, because all the growing stuff is way up high. Not very much green on the ground. The boundary areas are where all the young green shoots and trees are, which makes them valuable to mule deer, squirrels, etc.

The greater the human population in what were formerly heavily wooded areas - at least until you stripmall things out of existence - the greater the population of those fringe-loving animals, because every house extending into the woods creates a lovely boundary where great things grow. So up here in New England, which used to be covered pretty much entirely with climax evergreens, there are actually more deer and squirrels and a bunch of other animals than there were when the Pilgrims arrived. When we depressed the wolf population low enough that the coyote had free rein, the coyote population grew to absorb those deer and squirrels.

Which comes down to - no matter how heavily you hunt, the population is going to keep rebounding. Unless you singlehandedly bring your county's coyote population down below 30% of its current and then fence off the entire county, all you're doing is creating a locally rebounding population. Locally rebounding equals more young animals living. More young animals living means more stupid experimental attacks on your stuff. That's why once you start killing them it SEEMS like there are a ton of them. There aren't - you've just taken them out successively and another has filled its place.

Coyotes don't want your yard or your land. They only want calories. You bring nothing to the table, for them, except calories. So if the calories are removed, they will "disappear." Go ask a neighbor who doesn't have any livestock if he's aware of a coyote problem - the answer will probably be that he's never even seen a single one (he may be aware of the stories but he's never actually seen one). He's got no calories for them and so they don't exist to him.

If you stop presenting calories to them, they will stop existing for you too. And the ones making that decision will be the mature adults, meaning that for their entire hunting lives they'll leave you alone. You WANT an adult population of coyotes. You do not want a rebounding young population that has enough energy and inexperience that they'll keep trying stuff.

 

[chickortreat]

I'm with Randy. Sounds like a plan. As far as your wildlife biologists and all that are concerned, maybe they'll pay compensation on chickens lost to the species they spend so much time "studying". I won't wait for some biologist to come up witha solution to my coyote problem. I'll handle it myself. Just as if I hear glass breaking in the middle of the night......wanna wager whether or not it's the phone I reach for?

 

[woodmort]

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No, you misunderstand: unlike humans, wildlife populations increase until they stabilize with their environment, at that point they reach the ideal 100%. If the numbers rise above that amount the reproduction rates fall and excess is run off, if it falls below then litter sizes increase and wanderers are invited in. What happens statistically is that when, through introduced disease or hunting, the population falls below 30% it cannot make up the numbers even though there is room for them. Unless new members are introduced the population will gradually fad until it is extinct. This is what happened to wolves, mountain lions, buffalo and beaver--to name a few larger animals that were eradicated from their former ranges.(Also many tribes of Native Americans, but that's another story.) Now, granted, some of these animals are coming back and filling their former range to that 100% mark but this is due to reintroduction from other areas. Specifically if you wish to rid an area of coyotes, you will have to kill off 70 out of every 100 and keep out any wanderers. Given the numbers of coyotes in a given area and the fact they can range over 100 miles, that is going to take a lot of killing. That is the point of many DEC warnings, specifically that if the local population is not causing problems, leave it alone because if you eliminate what is there, newcomer will enter and they might not be so friendly. The indiscriminate killing may have the opposite result that you hope for because you can kill them all off anyway so learn to live with them.

ETA: Well put Joanne aka BlacksheepCardigans.

 

[Talihofarms]

There is one problem with all this data presented. It is based on conditions.
I will give you an example. Look at the problems yotes are causing in Alaska.
20 years ago they were non existent in the Wrangell mts GMU14.
Now they are competing with wolves for the spring lambing season. Sheep numbers are crashing.
This is a case where the only conditioning would be to eliminate as many yotes as possible if not every one of them.

I would like to know what other conditioning would be available?

Then to open a new can of worms..............GLOBAL WARMING...........?????????????

Just my.02

 

[woodmort]

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It won't be possible because they have found a niche and are coming in to fill it. To eliminate the GMU14 population you'd have to eliminate the other game unit populations in the areas around GMU14. Besides, coyotes are smart enough that once you get rid of the dumb ones, the others learn where the danger is and stay out of sight. I suspect that whittling them down to the magic 30% would be about impossible unless it was being done on an off-shore island.
BTW, my neighbor--half a mile away--raised sheep for years and never lost one to the family of coyotes that inhabit the area. He did, however, do all his lambing inside.

 

[woodmort]

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You're shooting the messenger. Maybe if people paid attention to what the biologist have learned they could coexist with these animals better and wouldn't be losing chickens, pets, etc. to them.

 

[Q9]

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I land on the "cynic" side when it comes to predators (usually), so needless to say, I greatly enjoyed that post.

What is the gun in the video? I couldn't identify it.