Coyote control - let’s talk about a system for controlling predators

[4wanderingeyes]

I very rarely have yotes in my area in Wisconsin. Too many wolves around. If the yotes start howling, they are hunted down pretty quick by wolves. I too have a lot of bear. But I agree with you, DNR’s 11,000 tags in my county has knocked the deer numbers way back the past few years. This past winter didn’t help at all either.

 

[yoteslayer]

As a yote trapper, keep it simple. Buy some traps and set the logging roads or funnels where your cams show yotes moving through. I partially covered a logging road with a branch last year and set trap on tire track of the unblocked side, caught 6 yotes in 3weeks. Black flash bc regular flash will scare yotes. Plenty of YouTube trapping tutorials. Also many trapping videos. Might be worth it to befriend a trapper to teach you and let him trap the first yr.

 

[cavey]

Oops, I thought the original poster was from Washburn Co. my bad.....

4wanderineyes, Yes! the amount of tags they allowed was insane! It is sad what it did to the economy up there, nobody hunts the forest land like they used to, they just gave up on hunting up there. The deer dont move and they are not used to people, one sniff or the sound of a truck and they are hunkered down for the season.

Around Menomonie we have a ton of coyotes, only a handful of wolves and next to nothing for foxes. In High school there were lots of foxes around then the coyotes moved in and killed off the fox population.

 

[Telemark]

You can increase fawn survival if you make a serious effort on the coyotes at the right time of year. I think you're supposed to start in February or March. Use food baits and small animal distress/mouse squeak. Hunt/trap all the way through June. AS SOON as the does start dropping fawns, switch to fawn distress calls and a fawn decoy for hunting. You're trying to take out the breeding pairs after they establish territory, but before their pups are self-sufficient.

Taking out one or two doesn't help and may be counter-productive, as was mentioned. It takes a pretty serious effort to make a real difference. How much effort depends on the dynamics of your local area.

Be careful reading scientific studies. I have read every study on eastern coyotes i could find, and they often contradict each other. I am suspicious of the funding and motivation for some of the studies.

 

[SwampCat]

This is an interesting article - again, southern coyotes - so may not be applicable to most. They trapped coyotes and proclaimed The overall gain in neonate survival was only “modest”. Most coyote studies reach the same conclusion. But, that is what I am after - a modest gain in fawn recruitment. A 10% increase in fawn recruitment over seven years is a lot of deer. I think a lot of people have too high of expectations. I would gladly take a 10% interest rate on my money.

But what I really found interesting was this statement:

. When the objective is to increase the recruitment of white-tailed deer, we conclude that neither coyote control nor vegetation management appear effective. Reduction of the antlerless harvest may be necessary to meet this objective,

I found that as I improved my habitat for deer, coyotes frequented my land more. The better the habitat, the more deer - and coyotes. It was like a vicious cycle. I did not improve fawn recruitment by improving the habitat. My fawn recruitment improved when we started removing coyotes and quit killing does.

 

[alldaysit]

I live and hunt in Rusk County Wisconsin. A few things I must sum up at this point in the thread as I have questions:

1. How many liters of pups can a breeding female have per year?
2. What’s the published “coyotes per square mile” carrying capacity on average for the U.S?
3. I have absolutely seen changes in fawn and overall deer recruitment on my 30 acre tract when implementing hinge cutting efforts and the changes in bedding in 30+ year old popple/maple regrowth. I can say for certain my property is the most “secure” from a barricade/hinge cutting/bedding perspective in a vast number of miles after talking with many of my neighbors. Obviously a swamp island is more secure but I am strictly talking timbered property here..... and in a 3 mile radius I have a few square miles of swamp land.
4. Here is the thing. My pictures of deer significantly decrease as my pictures of coyotes increase. It’s NOT JUST FAWN MORTALITY. The deer leave the 120 property, for where that has yet to be determined. This 120 tract I have, has everything but hinge cutting for SECURITY bedding; thermal winter cover in the form of mature white pine conifer; and lastly agriculture on or nearby. I have roughly 4 acres of plots but it’s not nearly enough. It has swamps, cattails, tag alders, ridges, plots, islands in the swamps, mature trees, oaks, 20 year old popple growth, etc. But it is not as secure as this 30 acre tract after I did all the habitat work with the chainsaw. This 30 I have, it looks like a 10 foot tall living fence around it where I barricaded it on the exterior of the property (30-50 yards off the property line). My access trail is then between the barricade and actual property line. I then cut another barricade within the outer barricade on about a 1/4 mile of the perimeter. I also hinge cut at least 10 - 1/16 acre sections inside the center of the property. The 120 does not have anything like that other than natural bedding.

So from my personal observations in this county with what I would assume to be the same or neighboring predators, the SECURITY bedding created by barricading and hinge cutting bedding areas/acres is doing something for the Fawn recruitment.

So, it would make more sense in my opinion to focus on work with the chainsaw than work with the trap. Or at least prioritize the chainsaw work higher than predator control until the chainsaw work is done.

5. I am having a hard time believing that annual trapping in the late winter/spring/early summer would be a waste of time for increasing population of white tails. Now what I am thinking is if I throw trapping out the window and focus on doubling or tripling the size of my plots and hinge cut/barricade how drastically different next season could be on the 120.


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[SwampCat]

What is interesting to note in the Dr Kilgo study in South Carolina - their conclusion was coyote contol was not a viable response to increase fawn recruitment because it only produced “moderate” results and did not produce an increased number of fawns as they had modeled. The bottom line, pre-trapping, survival rate was 22.8% and the three year average survival rate during the coyote removal period was 38.2%. That is almost 60% increase in survival of fawns - but the scientists doing the study only considered that moderate and not as high as expected and probably not worth the time and effort.

I consider a 60% increase in annual survival monumental. If I have twenty adult does on my place with an average number of 1.7 fetus each - lets say they birth an average of 1.5 fawns - for a total of 30 fawns. If 23% of them survive, that is seven fawns each year. If 38% survive, that is twelve fawns each year. That is a lot of difference. Five more fawns per year - 25 more fawns in five years - not including the offspring of the fawns. Give me half that, and I would be esctatic. I guess we all have different opinions of what “moderate” really is.