Coyotes and Fawn Losses

Friend of mine got this picture a couple of days ago here in DeWitt County.

They get more than most on here would care to admit. I have always heard the coyotes are good for the environment. They only take the sick or old. That is BS. Years ago when I had sheep and 1080 was still legal I had the collars that had 1080 in them and put them on old sheep. The coyotes never killed one of them just the young lambs. Oh, and I forgot to mention. I hate coyotes probably more than any other thing in the world.

Sad. Just sent this to my landowner. She loves ALL the wildlife that pops up on her cameras but I may get the green light for predator hunting soon. Lol

Side note: what is your friend tying to keep out of that pen. That thing has a lot of t-posts.

80% of the fawns that don't make it will die in the mouths of coyotes. All other reasons account for the remaining 20% of those that don't survive their first year.

They will also team up to run an adult deer to the point of exhaustion and then take it down. I have seen it happen.

I never give a coyote a pass and never hesitate to bust a hunt to kill one.

Another one for the coyote haters

Deer feeders create great opportunities for coyotes to sit and wait for doe to show up with fawns. They will sit and watch them just like you do.

I believe that to be true also. I can't prove it with empirical evidence, but have seen them hang around feeders to kill coons/squirrels in the fall - mostly trail camera pics with some direct observation also. I never ran feeders in the spring anyway. Now I don't run them at all. That's not the main reason I quit, but do I believe not concentrating prey (and thus predators) is a great byproduct of not using feeders. Maybe more than I realize.

As tall as it looks, I think he's trying to keep all the deer out too.

Charlie

Here's a good read on the subject.

The research does suggest that anything that brings fawns into the open as routinely as feeders are a coyote's best friend.

Link

Fawn deer are a coyotes favorite food. None get a pass from me anywhere.

Good article and yes I will bust a yote any time I can. As far as ruining a hunt I don't think it will unless the deer are there at the same time. I have shot a yote early and left him laying then had deer show afterwards. I'm a believer in shoot stay quite and watch.

Rancher found a den on our place a few years ago and set up a camera on it and the mother coyote would score one fawn per day for about 10 days. Bad thing about deer and coyotes are the coyotes have their pups around the same time deer are dropping fawns.......easy pickings and alot of mouths to feed. And I shoot more coyotes than deer, thats how I try to balance.

In a perfect world we have more deer than we want on our property. We have a huge coyote population and many bobcats as well, if it weren't for the number of fawns they kill every year I don't want to know how many deer we would have.

Its an interesting thought but how many of the fawns that fall victim to coyotes would be killed by some other means before maturity? If they all lived they would starve to death.

Watched in person a coyote take down a fawn in my front yard a few years ago. Was in NW Arkansas (I had 23 acres bordered by several hundred acres of pasture land). Backed out of the garage and saw a fawn run through the corner of my yard, followed by a big yote. Caught and killed the fawn before I really even comprehended what I saw. I stared in disbelief as the yote carried the fawn back into the treeline. Mama doe came running down the hill just as then and spent several frantic minutes trying to find junior.

Just for reference, this was the first part of July...at 1:30 in the afternoon.

No yote gets a pass from me.

Maybe more deer hunters will start killing them if they could see how many fawns are being lost. That is interesting about the den cam. Good thread.

My bet is nothing, its a hog trap and he is trying to keep them in.

How long do you suppose yotes have been killing fawns? I agree shoot all you can.

Like so many things, I'm sure coyote and deer populations are like a pendulum that swings back and forth. Deer populations go up, which results in more coyotes that feed on them. Once deer numbers hit a low, coyote populations drop as well.

Perhaps as the ones who sit atop the food chain, we can help shorten the length of that swing in both directions.

The comments and photos shared seemed to have built a strong case for turning feeders off during those months when fawns start hitting the ground and begin learning how to survive. Better to encourage those does to stay back in the cover as much as possible.

Do you think the feeders make the difference? The mommas bed the fawns and then leave them. I see it every day in my parents neighborhood, the fawns are dropped in the acreage subdivision mommas stick em somewhere and head off for hours at a time to eat and I assure you they are not going to feeders.

I'm not speaking out against shooting coyotes either we kill as many as would can, which isn't enough, but I do pose the question what would happen if there weren't any? We wouldn't have enough tags to remove a sufficient number of deer from our property.

I have a study done by a biologist for a large ranch in New Mexico(think trophy mule deer). His fawn recruitment rate was less than 25% annually when he took over management of the ranch. His first job was to start hammering the coyotes hard. Did everything legal to do including helicopter hunts and hosting team coyote calling events with nice prizes. In a couple years his fawn survival rate jumped to 75%. That should give you a good idea as to the effect coyotes have on deer populations. In rural places where deer are out of control, they ought to stock coyotes....

Did their harvest rates and/or densities go up 200%?

If i have too many deer I just get more hunters. It is easy. I kill coyotes for my Ibex. It is one of those jobs that never ends.

One of my biggest regrets not living at the farm is not being able to get a handle on them suckers. IDK if I ever could with thousands of acres of NF surrounding me that goes unhunted most of the year. One day:

None get to walk at my place.

Sorry I haven't returned to this topic, got tied up running a water line the length of my place.

The pen is a very large hog trap.

I always try to kill a bunch of hogs and leave them laying over three particular two week periods. My neighbor had a horse die, he has a small place, so I took it as it coincided with one of the times that I need my coyotes with a full belly.

From my antlerless hunting and taking the time to measure the fetus within, I've got a very good grip as to when I have fresh fawns on the ground after collecting a decade and a half worth of data,



I also don't do any shredding until the first of August. The deer need the cover, and I don't want to hit a fawn as I've done that in the past. Actually, I cut everything I won't do it again until the same time next year. I shred only once a year, starting in August, because of a number of lessons learned. Deer are very reluctant to leave my place on the boundary fence line, and I think it is because all my neighbors mow their property immediately before hunting season and their boundaries look like they are a concrete road. I see deer come up to the fence and look across and disappear back into my place all the time.