 Coyotes have been around for decades, especially in Texas and the western prairie states. In fact, it wasn't until the mid 1960s that they were found in the Southeast, but since then their range expansion has been significant. No one is sure why the coyote has expanded its range, but it may well parallel the increase in deer numbers east of the Mississippi. Take my home state of West Virginia. Twenty years ago seeing or hearing a coyote was rather unusual. Today we have a lot of coyotes. Most everybody does.
Presently coyotes are found in every state in the country, and whenever they are around, you will here outcries from some deer hunters. These hunters perpetuate all kinds of rumors about coyotes — by far the most common rumor states "the DNR stocked coyotes to lower the deer herd." It even goes so far as to state that dead coyotes have ear tags in that were placed there by the DNR for identification. In Pennsylvania, the latest twist on this rumor is that they traded turkeys to a Midwestern state in exchange for coyotes. What drivel. Yet this "stocked coyote" rumor is heard in almost every state at one time or another. The truth is that no state wildlife agency has ever stocked coyotes. "Coyotes are wiping out our deer" is another story you hear in most whitetail states, but still our deer herds are either stable or growing.
Are Coyotes Eating The Deer?
With all the controversy over coyotes, the basic question still remains — is coyote predation on deer significant? Before we answer that, let's look at the coyote's diet. Coyotes are carnivores, which means they have teeth designed to eat meat, especially rodents, rabbits and deer. However, coyotes adapt their diet to what is available, and in that regard they are "seasonally omnivorous," meaning they will eat fruits, berries and even insects when available.
For example, a recent Mississippi study showed that in the fall, persimmons were highly-prized diet items for coyotes. This study showed that when the fall crop of persimmons was good and coyotes filled their bellies with this tasty fruit, deer predation decreased. In the spring this study found that blackberries were a highly-selected food item. All this is just fine, but what about impacts on deer?
Many of the coyote/deer studies have been done in Texas, where coyote numbers are high, deer hunting is important and the agriculture economy is significant. At least four major studies were done, and they all showed that coyotes ate a fair number of fawns. One study established that where coyotes were heavily trapped or shot, fawn production increased by 70 percent. An Oklahoma study showed that 86 percent of all fawn mortality was caused by coyotes. Even though these studies indicated that coyotes ate fawns, in all cases, after a period of time, overall numbers of adults remained the same.
Moving further east, in 2000-2001 Pennsylvania researchers found that predators killed 22 percent of 218 radio-collared fawns. Half of those 22 percent were killed by coyotes, and 43 percent were killed by black bears. In Maine, deer were shown to make up 50 percent of the coyote's diet, while recent research in Nova Scotia showed that coyotes killed 10 percent of all radio-collared deer. Of interest was that lynx and bobcats killed twice as many deer as coyotes. Also, researchers found that in winter, coyotes killed deer in areas of low deer density proportionately more than expected. Apparently, deer were more vulnerable in those areas and deeper snows led to more predation. Overall, it was felt that in areas of low deer numbers, the herd was being held in check, at least in part, because of coyotes.
Two years ago I was bowhunting deer in Alberta. An unseasonable October storm dumped a foot of snow on the ground, making hunting a bit harsh. One cold and windy morning I was hunkered down in a tree stand in mixed pine and hardwoods near an alfalfa field. I'd found plenty of buck sign in that area and placed a stand there the day before.
Around 8:30 a.m. two does came flying by me with a coyote in hot pursuit. Later those same two does fed back under my stand, seemingly no worse for wear. That shows that coyotes do chase, and I'm sure kill, adult deer.
In Mississippi, researchers found deer hair in scats at two times of the year — when fawns were born and during and right after the hunting season. Finding hair in scats in deer season and not in other months basically means that coyotes don't kill adult deer very often, at least not in Mississippi. Finding deer hair in scats during the deer season shouldn't come as a surprise, for it is at that time that some hunter-killed deer are left in the woods, along with the eviscerated remains of harvested deer.
What About Fawns?
Several studies mentioned something quite interesting about coyote predation on fawns. Apparently fawns give off very little scent the first few weeks after birth. Mississippi researchers stated that coyotes had to get within 200 feet or less to detect the odor of a fawn. These researchers, and others, went on to comment about hiding cover for fawns. Deer tend to bed where there is screening ground cover. If the fawns bed where there is good hiding cover, tall grasses and thick brush, then coyotes have trouble finding them. But if there are too many deer, overgrazing and poor ground cover, coyote predation on fawns will be higher. If the habitat has a lot of thick cover everywhere, then coyotes can't concentrate on one area. Bottom line — healthy deer habitat means less coyote predation on fawns.
What about predator control? Most studies showed that bow and gun hunters randomly taking coyotes during deer season has no effect on coyote or deer numbers. One Texas study showed that a concentrated coyote control program on a restricted area could impact deer numbers in a positive way. However, as mentioned earlier, most removal studies indicate that over a period of time, trapping and hunting coyotes has little impact on adult deer numbers.
Thus, coyotes, bobcats, automobiles, disease and recreational hunters all take some deer. But only in unusual situations will coyotes control deer numbers. The next time you are in your stand and hear coyotes howling in the distance, know that they will get their share, and you will too.
Subscribe NOW to Whitetail Journal Magazine!
|
Coyotes and Deer
