How long does it take a coyote to decompose?

G

GJJ

New member
I shot a coyote in the desert about a month ago. I don't keep the pelts, so I left it at the spot of the shooting. I was curious about how long it takes the coyote to decompose or become food for other animals?

What type of timeframe are we talking about days, weeks, ect...
 
GJJ,

I used to dump all mine across the street by the house. For some reason the coyotes wouldn't touch them or skinned bobcat carcasses. It took weeks for them to decompose.
 
Around here the magpies, crows, ravens, and buzzards can be on it within an hour or two. First getting the eyes and the bullet wound. By noon it looks like you shot it with a .50 caliber. The hide and bones will be there for a while.
 
This is how this one looked, one week after I skinned it:

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Birds got that one, Ravens mostly, and I imagine that most of the work they did was finished in the first 24 hours.

I've seen them reduced to bones like that over night, and then I've seen them turn to mummies on the side of the freeway and still look pretty much intact after six months.

Just depends...

- DAA
 
Whew! I thought Soreloser was surfing some undercover information--still thinking of sending one to Sandman22250! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif



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Check your mail in a week, it might stink but I'm all about making dreams come true.

 
more than 50 years ago I had a trap line in the city of Los Angeles, I was 14 or so. We used to trap coyotes, foxes, bobcats and skin the critters (we really played up the Jeremiah Johnson deal) Our back yard was tough to dig in but my 80 year old neighbors rose garden was nice and soft so I buried the carcasses there. One day there were 4 LAPD homicide detectives in her back yard examining what she had dug up. They were partially decomposed critters and the detectives said they didnt know what they were, but my Dad sure did and if I remember right it I got a very stern lecture. The case is probably still on file as an unsolved serial killer gone mad. To answer the question 6 months buried doesnt do it. Interesting part of the story is that 57 years later my son is a homicide detective in Los Angeles and I never told him the story.
 
The time it takes to decompose varies substantially according to the weather, it hot weather it usually doesn't take too long, but if the flies get to it, the maggots can consume one almost completely in 3 or 4 days.
 
Quote:
more than 50 years ago I had a trap line in the city of Los Angeles, I was 14 or so. We used to trap coyotes, foxes, bobcats and skin the critters (we really played up the Jeremiah Johnson deal) Our back yard was tough to dig in but my 80 year old neighbors rose garden was nice and soft so I buried the carcasses there. One day there were 4 LAPD homicide detectives in her back yard examining what she had dug up. They were partially decomposed critters and the detectives said they didnt know what they were, but my Dad sure did and if I remember right it I got a very stern lecture. The case is probably still on file as an unsolved serial killer gone mad. To answer the question 6 months buried doesnt do it.



That's the best I have heard in a good long while.
 
Quote:
more than 50 years ago I had a trap line in the city of Los Angeles, I was 14 or so. We used to trap coyotes, foxes, bobcats and skin the critters (we really played up the Jeremiah Johnson deal) Our back yard was tough to dig in but my 80 year old neighbors rose garden was nice and soft so I buried the carcasses there. One day there were 4 LAPD homicide detectives in her back yard examining what she had dug up. They were partially decomposed critters and the detectives said they didnt know what they were, but my Dad sure did and if I remember right it I got a very stern lecture. The case is probably still on file as an unsolved serial killer gone mad. To answer the question 6 months buried doesnt do it.


Burying a carcass substantially increases the amount of time it takes for it to decompose.
 
Like Dave mentioned, birds, primarily ravens, along with some raptors and eagles, will pick a carcass clean in no time, far quicker than carrion eating predators and varmints.
I shot a coyote a few years back that was hit badly and had a touch of mange, so it just wasn't worth skinning. Seven hours later, made a pass thru the same area as the road made a large loop thru the area. I saw a bald eagle and a mob of ravens leave from the lacation I had left the coyote. It looked about like the one in Daves photo, just a picked over skeleton.
 
Here is a story maybe someone can explain. Several years back my dad shot two from a deer stand. He dragged them to a spot in a clearing and layed them side by side. two weeks later I went by and saw them. One was decomposed as normal. The other looked as if it had been shot within the last two hours. It was stiff, but absolutely no decomposition. The fur was not even matted from the weather.
 
About a month ago, I did a "cowboy drive-by" on a couple of yotes just a couple of days apart. On the evening after shooting the first, I counted 32 ravens working on the carcass. Today, you can hardly find the location !
3 days, or so later, I shot the other. That evening, I saw 2 ravens working the carcass. Last Sunday, you could still see quite a bit of scattered fur where he went down.
Mark
 


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