When you see a coyote hit on the road....

great info gentlmen!!!
in the yukon all predators respond to rabbit population. predators allways seem to be two years behind rabbits.
in ower low cycle years, dogs spend more time mousing in the ditches along alaska hwy.
LIKE JAY we have lots of area to hunt. so if we see runover dogs, good spot to hunt?
it seems to me that dogs travel same area year after year.
Have stoped to pick up road kill dogs before seam to be mostly young off the year?
not to many big silkies get it this way?
but them young dogs make great bait frozen in a lake
 
Gentlemen; One thing no one has touched on is: when you see an RKY(road kill yote) it is one that you will never be able to call.....
In the southwest I do see several RKY's and they do appear to be the young of the year, possibly looking for "their" area after the fall dispersion.
Possibly someone should apply for a government grant to do a study on this aspect of coyote tragedies.LOL, scooter
 
Foxchasr, I think that's very possible. Depending on availability of food, the population density of an area can be dynamic. Plenty of food and available cover will lure trancients from adjacent, less productive terrain. If the new encroaching coyotes have never seen a hiway before they may not make it through the learning curve.
 
I appears to me that this happens in short spurts in this area. You will notice what seems to be a lot of road kill yotes for a month or so and then for 2-3 months you don't hardly see any. Its hard to say if its a good area to call, because the biggest part of this area is good for calling. I know this past week I have been seeing 6-8 yotes a day from 8am til 11am. Sure wish I could take my rifle to work with me.
 
Road kills per unit measured, in this case, mile of roadway, is what the by-golly-jists call an index, which is what they use to estimate trends in population dynamics. If you see ten roadkills per one thousand miles this year in a 12-month period, then see fifteen next year for the same period and same length of road, assuming nothing else has changed dramatically along that route, then you can deduce that there has been a relative increase in coyote numbers and/or density over the past year. Recently, I was given the details of a study conducted in CO where they use the number of roadkilled mountain lions per mile of roadway to estimate trends and changes in the state's cougar population. The number of roadkills/mile is their index and has proven to be reasonably successful and accurate over the past few years. And no, I cannot cite the study by name or author. I was anecdotally offered the highlights. Why use indices? Because biologists cannot give you an absolute or precise number of, say, coyotes in AZ at any given time. But, using harvest data and other indices, they observe and can draw reasonably safe conclusions about whether populations are increasing, decreasing, or remaining stable in any given area, which may further prompt them to examine the reasons for the incline/ decline. As far as the original post, if I saw a sudden increase in roadkilled coyotes and all other recognizable factors remained equal as compared to this time a year ago, I'd feel safe in operating under the concensus that there were more coyotes to hunt, at least until such time that they were all killed on the highway.
 
NASA,
Some interesting experiences of yours. Perhaps baiting would be easier done near a road. NOT! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

I have never considered sitting within rifle range of a road kill, but it might not be a bad idea. Ofcourse, the type of road might determine whether or not you could set up there too. A State Route would not be a good choice, but some back country road could be a better place. There again, some states have regulations as to how far off the road you have to be with a loaded firearm too, so that could take a bearing on this practise.

Some very interesting and informative replies here. Thank you all, again. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Good hunting, Bowhunter57
 
I don't blame you NASA, I don't say much because a few like to trash what I say. I too, do not bs people. If I say or experienced something, it happened. Maybe I miss understand the reason for it happening, that could be.T20
 
There was a spot on I15 between Corona and Lake Elsinore that always had road killed coyotes at certain times each year. I finally made time to go check it out. Turns out the hiway cut a ravine from the Cleveland NF that ran E to foothills where several small ranches were. I drove the dirt roads to the ranches to look around. Penned goats, chickens and cats were roaming free. That night I headed W up the ravine a bit and started calling with the howler. The hills were alive with responses. It was maybe 4 miles from where the coyotes responded to where the nearest ranch was. They're in the area, all right.
 
I don't know how many of you guys can hunt at night, but seeing a few road crossers at night is a good sign the coyotes are moving. I believe if you see a few fresh dead coyotes on the road in any given area that is also a good sign. Lets put it this way, if you see dead coyotes on the road, that must mean some are in the area? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif lol.
 
NASA, that sounds like a good place to trap, a location like that would probably be a steady producer. One location on my western line produces nearly half of my catch and shooting. It seems to be the junction of two or three coyote territories. It has several good cat rock piles, too. T20
 
T20, you know your stuff, buddy. I'm not a very experienced trapper, but that would be the way to do it. Three other small ravines practically come together there near the freeway. It's got to be a main corridor for W to E travel. There is no shooting allowed in that area, either.

As for cats, if you continue up the side of the first range to the ridge line, there they are. Short and long tailed, both. Called my first bob up there.
 
I'm in El Paso, TX. There's a paved military access road here that runs about three miles to my house. During the summer, I will find anywhere from 1 to as much as 6 bodies in the road. I've also hit two on this road at night this year so far. Seems like a lot of activity for a heavily traveled road.
 
NASA, that road between Corona and Elsinore...is there a nudie camp called Glenn Eden? I shot a bobcat right next to the place back in the 60s lol. Cleveland NF, I do believe I've taken a few critters out of that place too. Man we got alot in common lol, Good Hunting.
 
Danny, you been sneakin' round my back door, LOL? Yep, the spot is just South of Glen Eden. Wow, I guess if a SoCal area has critters, you've been there, done that. OK, you can have it back. I think I just might stay in CO! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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