As I understand it, coyotes BOTH will raise a litter of pups.
If you are killing coyotes for depredation reasons & kill one of the parents, then the remaining parent will kill more readily.
What this means to people that want fawns & elk & beef calves to survive, is that with both coyote parents hunting, they will maybe be more likely to stick to their regular fare of rabbits, etc.
But, with one parent gone, the remaining parent kills what is easy & more availible....If that is lamb, or fawn, then that is what the pups will be raised on.
So, in short, those people that serious about depredating coyotes will kill ALL the coyotes.
I know ranchers that raise sheep close to here, & you'd have better luck calling coyotes on the moon, because simply, the only coyotes you find on these ranches are the occasional coyotes that might find a way inside the tight fences. Usually it is trapped, tracked & shot, or poisoned with collars on sheep in short order.
Now, for most of the hunting area, just because you shoot a coyote does not mean that a whole litter of pups will die a slow death from starvation, unless both parents are killed.
I kill coyotes for depradation AND sport purposes. My game plan is that while the pups are in the den, I usually slack off on hunting.
I wait until they are out & hunting on their own or in the litter as they hunt, & call them in & mow them down.
There's nothing too bright about pups that are feeling their wheaties...
Even with all my hunting, I don't think that coyotes will be placed on the endangered list anytime soon.
Each of us hunts for reasons of our own, that only we can understand.
We follow our own standards of ethics.
I don't really understand why this brings out such dis agreement within our ranks. We ought to be more tolerant of the reasons others do what they do. It suits them, just like what I do suits me.
Doesn't make it right or wrong.
There are plenty of the type out there that believe hunting in any fashion is wrong. Let THEM do the bickering amonst themselves.
Just my opinion.
Barry
