Compensatory Reproduction/Immigration Coyotes

Heavy Hunting/Trapping Pressure

  • Increases Population

    Votes: 1 16.7%

  • Decreases Population

    Votes: 5 83.3%
  • Total voters
    6
CNP-Outdoors

CNP-Outdoors

Member
What do you guys think about heavier pressured coyotes producing larger litters with better survival rates and/or other coyotes immigrating to the area and overall increasing the population in that area vs heavily hunted coyotes eradicating them from that area?

The research studies all seem to indicate heavy hunting/trapping pressure can increase the population overall and I’ve also heard that killing the adults with pups can eradicate them or decrease the population.
 
Liter size is based on caloric intake and that’s it. More game for them, larger litters

Will coyotes move into empty territory? Absolutely. It could be a week, a month, or even longer.

I trap/hunt year round on several properties. I let all landowners know that the first year will be the most expensive and then it decreases every year thereafter until it stabilizes. I only get paid for what I catch and not a set fee, so it’s beneficial for me to catch everything I can.

With that said, habitat plays a role in both predators and prey. The better the habitat you have for game animals or prey, the worse it seems for predators as far as making it their home. All my properties now have great habitat and very little predators that call those areas home. Yes I’ll have the nest raiders, but most cats and coyotes are transients.

This Summer I’m concentrating mostly on nest raiders and setting less footholds for coyotes. Since I’ve gotten bit by the bug of thermal hunting I’m sorta wanting targets, lol. I get paid for dead critters regardless if I’m thermal hunting or trapping them so I’m still taking them off the properties. I’m fairly confident there’s a pair denning right near the property line and as soon as I get back from an upcoming cruise I’ll start back calling and find out.

If removing coyotes caused a population explosion, I’m pretty sure I’d be a very rich man! Unfortunately that’s just not the case. And yes, catching or shooting females prior to denning will drastically decrease their numbers for quite a while. When you can walk 2500ac and find only 2 sets of tracks that you know aren’t from the same coyote, then the numbers have been reduced. But again, it’s a yearly thing for me, so someone only trapping/hunting for fur only will see just as many numbers the next year or maybe even more.
 
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I think the coyote population numbers vary in regions according to the human population, amount of land in the area coyote have to breed & den and the coyote hunting season.
In NY state we have a six month season so the coyote who survive and don't become a nuisance during the off season get to live hassle free for six months to breed and prosper.
Every state that borders NY state has a different human populace and coyote season.
Since there's so many changing variables to consider in any single state or any single county in a state I don't think anyone can say for certain that hunting pressure can solely be the cause of coyote breeding more or less and the size of litters.

SJC
 
Spurchaser said:
Liter size is based on caloric intake and that’s it. More game for them, larger litters

Will coyotes move into empty territory? Absolutely. It could be a week, a month, or even longer.

I trap/hunt year round on several properties. I let all landowners know that the first year will be the most expensive and then it decreases every year thereafter until it stabilizes. I only get paid for what I catch and not a set fee, so it’s beneficial for me to catch everything I can.

With that said, habitat plays a role in both predators and prey. The better the habitat you have for game animals or prey, the worse it seems for predators as far as making it their home. All my properties now have great habitat and very little predators that call those areas home. Yes I’ll have the nest raiders, but most cats and coyotes are transients.

This Summer I’m concentrating mostly on nest raiders and setting less footholds for coyotes. Since I’ve gotten bit by the bug of thermal hunting I’m sorta wanting targets, lol. I get paid for dead critters regardless if I’m thermal hunting or trapping them so I’m still taking them off the properties. I’m fairly confident there’s a pair denning right near the property line and as soon as I get back from an upcoming cruise I’ll start back calling and find out.

If removing coyotes caused a population explosion, I’m pretty sure I’d be a very rich man! Unfortunately that’s just not the case. And yes, catching or shooting females prior to denning will drastically decrease their numbers for quite a while. When you can walk 2500ac and find only 2 sets of tracks that you know aren’t from the same coyote, then the numbers have been reduced. But again, it’s a yearly thing for me, so someone only trapping/hunting for fur only will see just as many numbers the next year or maybe even more.
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Very good information. Thanks!
 
I cant remember which one it was but one of the FoxPro podcasts they addressed this. The myth that coyotes can control litter size was started by anti hunting groups to discredit hunters who are controling populations.
In reality like spurchaser said, coyotes litter size all comes down to caloric intake and amount of available food.
 
It's going way back and I don't trust my memory enough to try and cite specifics. But some of the field men involved in gathering the data for the initial studies promulgating compensatory natality thought the conclusions patently ridiculous. Citing other, more obvious reasons for large litters, including those large litters not even being from one mother. I talked to a couple of those guys, full time ADC men, about it, way back when. My take at that time was "junk science". As my friend Scott Huber likes to say, all those studies are just a snapshot in time of a narrow set of conditions. The authors are all looking to promote something new and groundbreaking. All such studies, regardless the subject, need to be viewed through a lens of skepticism.

The Crabtree studies of unexploited Yellowstone coyotes way back in the day led to a lot of conclusions that simply do not hold even a drop of water when applied to exploited populations. Yet, to this day, half a century later, many of those conclusions are still being built upon to reach new conclusions applied to exploited populations.

- DAA
 
No matter how litter size is dictated they sure can breed! My pals push a very small section out their way every Saturday during winter and some years can rack up as many as 50 yotes from it! That said I have some properties that are almost a guarantee to see a coyote while others many not produce for 15 stands, must be something to that "good" habitat theory.
 
Since I started trapping and calling coyotes in 1984 there has been 3 different long three year droughts that on the third year with no rain the coyotes didn't have pups or they ate them.

When we get enough rain to get good ground cover the coyotes have big litters. Many years ago I hunted with a government trapper in late February and March and every female coyote that he cut open had 10 to 14 pups in them.

Around here mother nature controls the coyote population way more than hunters do. Trapping coyotes with leg hold traps has been illegal since 1998 in California.
 
A piece of land can only accommodate so many animals, take some out and the void gets filled. It may take awhile if allowed to fill naturally. Keep taking and it is harder to recover.

Right now we've gone through a serious draught, it has looked like pictures from the "Dirty Thirties" this spring. The dust has actually drifted all the way across some roads and in the flats you can see dust/dirt drifts behind bushes, even prickly pear cactus are drying up and dying. Last season was my worst and I didn't kill a single coyote of the year and actually only killed one with that wasn't old and grizzled.

Today we had nearly our only measurable rain in a year. Hallelujah, I hope it isn't the last for the year.
 
Many anti hunting narratives are partial composites of "studies" and research that can be interpreted as supporting the theory that no hunting is a management strategy. But the only way that has any value is when there is NO HUMAN population (which is a core belief in the eco terrorist extremist brain).
 
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