“Should I shoot that coyote?”
“No coyotes until after 9:00 am” was The Old Man’s response. He was guiding for a longtime friend and duck hunting partner.
It’s a regular occurance for us to see a coyote while hunting. I told you about The Old Man laying the smack on 3 during one sit during the 2008 rifle season. I didn’t tell you about this mangy looking thing I shot during the 2009 turkey season:
I have no idea what skin problem she had but it was ugly and extremely foul smelling.
Anyway the point is, what should you do when you see a coyote? Obviously weigh your hunting interests. That was the point of the 9:00am rule. But what about the biology of the whole thing? Coyotes eat deer and turkeys so you should kill every one you see right?
It’s not necessarily that simple according to Mike Bodenchuk of the USDA’s wildlife services who argues that the occasional killing of a predator really does not impact populations or predation:
… coyotes have a 60 percent annual mortality rate in some cases, whether they are hunted or not. In order to have an impact, it’s vital to remove either 70 to 80 percent of the entire population, or to remove the right coyotes at the right time.
Randomly killing the occasional predator might help in such extreme situations. However, it’s critical to maintain a high level of predator management for several years in order to have a lasting impact. Researchers working on the National Bison Range in Montana found that deer and antelope fawn mortality increased substantially only a few years after coyote control efforts stopped, because coyotes filled the void left by those taken out of the population. When coyote numbers fall, they tend to produce larger litters to make up for the decrease in adults. And other coyotes will move in from surrounding areas. Killing a couple of coyotes in a single season will likely have little noticeable effect on your deer numbers or the quality of the bucks.
You can read the whole piece from Whitetail Journal here.
In Kansas there is no closed season on coyotes and they can be killed in a variety of ways including running them with dogs. Over the years I’ve tried several times to call them in the late fall or winter when their coats are thicker and I’m bored. I’ve had very little sucess. I suspect that they’ve been hunted hard by that time of year and dumb ones are all dead. For me it’s much easier to find them like this (from last week’s turkey hunt):
Then do like the hunter quoted at the beginning and wait until all your likely turkey opportunities have resolved themselves:
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