http://www.roanoke.com/news/education/hi...c7bbf6df74.html

Good article Kurt; Thanks for posting. As someone who has lived four decades without any coyotes and the last three decades with

them running all over the place, I really can't think of a more worthless wild animal. I would love for someone to tell me one good

thing that a coyote does. And don't tell me they keep down the deer herd because we've got just as many whitetails as ever. They are

supposed to be pure death for feral cats but we get more feral cat trapping jobs every year. If we didn't have coyotes, we'd have

more foxes and that would be a good thing. Of course, being in Wisconsin, all we have to do is sit and wait for the wolves to come

down and kill the coyotes. That should be fun!

Mark June is participating in a study in Alabama and Georgia- http://www.trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4921350/Re:_Alabama_black_coyotes#Post4921350 . He also has an article in the May 2015 Fur-Fish-Game magazine (pages 16-21) about it. Good Read!!

A few more articles about the study-
http://www.outdooralabama.com/conservation-department-partners-coyote-study
http://www.archerywire.com/releases/337359/
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/stor...-deer/22335059/
http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/rome...0ed494b28a.html

Somewhere there exists a pack of coyotes sitting around staring up at the night sky saying to each other, what on earth is the benefit of that guy Winkelmann?



Wink, I know you are plenty well traveled and knowledgeable to know that the answer to your question of worth is flawed from the moment it passes your lips, or rather the keystrokes made the post.

The reason being that everything that we exist with, from plants, to animals, to weather, to each other, can be looked at from a literally innumerable set of viewpoints.

Personally I could care less if they control deer, if they eat mice, or the canada goose or feral cats. Why? Because my home, life, etc... isn't based upon any of these aspects of "service" that could be provided by coyotes or other predators.

Your view is based on a variety of mental constructs that tell you that to you the coyote has no value, yet the fox does, again because of some intrinsic set of values or things you've learned that lead you to feeling this way.

I like this point that I hadn't thought of in years, which is what is the definition of a weed.

The first definition I think fits what you are saying about the coyote, and is as follows....

- a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially: one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants

Now to me growing up I knew you pulled weeds in the garden so they didn't rob from your veggies and also because it looked neat and tidy.

In college I was taught about things like purple loosestrife and the number of people who would pull over and pick this invasive plant or order it (when that was possible) to plant at their homes because it flowered beautifully, yet it was an invasive scourge in wetlands and refuges...

Again, a weed to some, a jewel to others.

Growing up on a farm, much like many of our clients, I saw certain wildlife as a nuisance or a threat to my rabbits, geese, ducks, chickens, sheep, etc..., however now lacking those animals or threats, I can see a coyote every day and not think anything but wheres my camera, same goes for when I leave to head up north for a bat job and as I'm packing up in the 3-4am range, and hear a pack cut loose howling behind my development I can simply stop and listen and enjoy the song.

Again, it is my perspective because honestly I have nothing to worry about, nothing to lose and I see the coyote for what it is, as the article finishes with that Kurt posted, a coyote is just a coyote, nothing more nothing less.

We often lament various wildlife and their value. If we hunt or trap or fish, the animal might nourish us both physically and mentally during the hunt.

I know that this is one of those statements I've heard from you personally multiple times when coyotes get discussed and of course I get that it is perspective based, but I guess I'd ask, what do you need or want in the animal for it to have value to you and your life?

I have my list of wildlife that really make my day, others that fall further down the list, but ultimately entered this field because of a deep love of wildlife and the outdoors that is only satiated by working with wildlife and even wildlife and people resolving conflicts.

Wildlife even invasive wildlife I can find endlessly interesting and I'm constantly in awe of the adaptations of so many species coyotes included.

How we each rank the things around us again is a personal view, but for me I don't need the coyote to provide a "use" to me other than just being a coyote.

I'll throw you one though in terms of a reason to respect coyotes. While the settlers and those who followed were successful at eradicating nearly every large north american predator, the coyote was never ever eradicated or extirpated in western states. They are the ultimate survivor and I don't believe I know more than a handful of trappers that don't consider them a pinnacle animal in terms of intelligence and wits.

All native wildlife are part of the ecology that they evolved with, predators, prey, plants, insects and everything in between including humans. Every day coyotes are performing the ecological role they were designed and adapted for.

Doesn't mean folks have to love them or even like them, but like the weed in the roadside ditch, to some a nasty thing to be sprayed and killed, to others just something that looks pretty or fills them with a positive feeling.

I know I got all soft and touchy here probably got half of you using words like bunny hugger and anti, but lets be honest here, without wildlife this forum wouldn't exist and all of us would be doing something else for a living. Our lives as wildlife control operators, wildlife biologists, hunters, trappers, fisherman, etc.... is made richer by wildlife and the coyote is a member of that group, like em or leave em...

Good article from the original post, haven't had a chance to read the others LA linked yet....

Best,

Justin

Sometimes I think the coyotes ARE about a valuable as crab grass. Can't get rid of either. They are so perfectly prepared for survival, and are a lesson in survival.
Around here they run in packs like the wolves, they are natures "Gangstsas" wolves are the ultimate gang though . The coyotes have to sneak through wolf territory or get torn to bits.

I think wolves have a value, but when there are too many, they become worthless pests. Same with the yotes. We can try to control the yotes, but the wolves are off limits and we can't to what we should.

Coyotes give us a mission. A tough mission, to control them .

Justin, good post. As a man kissed the cow, he said each man to his own taste. But when the guy next door dog takes a dump and I step in it, I don't like his dog. LOL

This year at the farm we are getting every couple of week visits from a local pack. One let lose at 2am seemed like ten feet from the bedroom window. Other then that and there wanting to eat the chickens...... Came out the back door one nite and two took off like bats out of .............. they were digging where the dogs bury there bones sometimes. As long as they have fear of people... My 85 pound farm dog would like to explain his version of the the farm trespass rules to them, but I don't need the vet bills. If they become a problem I will do what rural folks have done for generations, take care of it.
Kurt

They eat a swell-of-a-lot of small mammals, ie: Mice, Voles,Squirrels, Marmots, Rabbits etc.

Those of you that read this might think I'm stretching the truth but everything on here is the Gospel as I know it. Before the late

sixties and late seventies, not only did we not have coyotes in southeast Wisconsin, we also did not have any of these: Beaver,

otter, flying squirrel, red squirrel, bald eagle, peregrine falcon, Canada goose, Cooper's hawk, egrets, house finch, sandhill crane,

wild turkey, sharp-shinned hawk, and turkey vultures. While we did have a very few whitetails, they were rare. I have had them run

into the side of my vehicle on three different occasions in the last twenty years. Now I enjoy each and every one of these new

species and I've dealt with most of them. I was the first one to catch a coyote in our area and I feel the same love for them as I

do a child molester. We didn't miss them when they weren't here and we sure wouldn't miss them if they all left.

I think therapy is in order Paul! Lol!

Sounds like they plague your mind more than should be allowed!

I'd like to hear what makes the otter, raccoon, skunk and others something of value just for my own morbid curiousity...

C'mon Justin, that answer is so simple it's pathetic. I have never had an otter, raccoon, skunk, or any other ADC animal kill a

family pet ( although I suppose it could happen ). And if it did happen I could take a cage and probably catch the offending animal.

The only way I'm going to catch a coyote is with a foothold or a cable restraint and that's too risky for my blood. The last family

of coyotes I dealt with lived in culverts on either side of a road in a subdivision. Mom, dad, and nine healthy pups. Can you imagine

the consequences of a 9 or 10 year old kid walking her new puppy along that road or an adult riding a bike with their dog on a leash?

Apparently our police department could. I shot the female, a friend of mine got the male, and another friend had an order for the

pups to be used for training coyote hounds in Montana. Now if I could ship all of our coyotes out west, I and all the people who

lost pets would be really happy.

Writer's credibility is dashed in his opening sentence. " The more coyotes you kill, the more you have."

Sure, animals generally have survival adaptations, but usually the parasites win, not survival of the fittest. Studies that I've read generally report that anywhere from 30% to 70% of coyotes have usually a multiple of 1 to 4 diseases or parasites. Wonder how many are completely healthy? Can't be more than a few %. Nature predator/prey relations tend to boom/crash. Man is the only predator that can apply science and increase both the numbers and health of populations over the long term.

And how many fawns and birthing doe become meals for opportunistic coyotes? I've read more than 2 studies indicating such are regular fare during the spring. The article fails to mention just how much meat is required for a coyote to thrive and gain 1 lb.
For large mouth bass, 6 to 10 lbs of blue gill, as well as small bait (rodents for 'yotes) are needed for a one pound gain. I've read some coyotes and bobcats enjoy a fawn weekly during the season.

For an optimal balance of coyotes and deer, and for pet predation to managed, often the coyote population needs to culled. Since they are so wily being unlikely to be driven to a point of being endangered, a constant effort at reducing their numbers is prerequisite to maximise wildlife numbers and health.

A small pack of coyotes just found the chicken I threw out this evening. My pet cats just came running back to me, good thing, they really like the feral cats I throw down there some days. You tube abounds with vid's of coyotes stealing off with fluffy from a suburban yard and the local coyotes hunt near my house regularly. I've lost pets and there's no doubt they'd scarf one up given the chance.

Last night I was awoke to a coyote at 2 AM. Deduction states it is a young male celebrating as the neighbor had shot a female coyote a few weeks back and the male vacated the township. This same male I saw a black, runny scat the day before on the road, having eaten some great ration of meat.
I can tell now when the pecking order arrives. Our state dumped mountain lions in a nearby Game Refuge to kill the deer, and those lions appeared here. There are now those wonderful wolves moving in. Each time one of the major killers appears, the coyotes disappear, and when the major killers move on their hunting routes, the fox appear again in absence of the coyotes.
In civilized cultures, humans by hunting, fishing and trapping occupy the best and most efficient humane management of prey species. America has become a nation of predators meant to destroy wildlife to manage it, as predators do not write letters to the governor complaining of horrid government officials sucking off tax money pretending to manage wildlife.
That coyote will soon be wearing a trap for jewelry as the righteous remedy for a killer. I have noticed that there is nothing but old raccoons now with all the game species disappearing here. Teddy Roosevelt, John Burroughs and Jim Owen all advocated exterminating large predators and that is what American wildlife policy was. For those who are not aware of the two following the founder of Yellowstone, Um John was the father of Yosemite and Uncle Jim was superintendent of the Grand Canyon. That is the historical record and reality, and all of this raising dangerous predators is propaganda introduced to condition the public that people have no place in nature, gun ownership or being martial.

Well not exactly dashed, salty. There have been several studies showing that killing coyotes can increase the density. This done by removing coyotes with larger territories (often thought to be dominant pairs) and allowing those territories to become smaller, hence more coyotes. This may also be increased in urban areas where territory boundary markers are more available as well as food and other resources.

Good to see you back HD. A coyote is just a coyote.... that does what coyotes do.

The reason that coyote have so little effect on our deer herd is pretty easy to understand. We have a really big car kill in our

urban/suburban area. Those road kills are not picked up unless they are right in the middle of the city. The majority are dragged

into the brush to be feed on. It doesn't take a coyote with a college degree to figure out that a dead deer will probably not try to

kick his teeth out while he's pulling it down. ( And they taste just as good when they're tenderized by 18 wheeler ) I am not against

this practice. If the coyotes would just eat the road-kill and not the pets, I wouldn't have to argue with Justin. But that is fun!

Also, If I recall correctly to affect the population of coyotes for the following year somewhere upwards of 70% need to be killed. So Salty isn't exactly wrong with the assumption that the more you kill the less you have, and as has been pointed out I would agree that it is diseases and other factors that would be more a limiting factor on coyote populations than hunters and trappers, with some exceptions of course...

One good thing about a coyote is they are a fun hunting opportunity! And you can shoot as many as you can hit.

star flakes, you were doing real good until you mentioned Teddy Roosevelt. Great man, great president, and he loved his elk. As a

matter of fact, he loved them to death. He killed more elk by over-protecting them than anyone else on earth.

Wow Paul,

Another nugget of wisdom!!! Ol Teddy is also continuing to affect wildlife to this day. The MBTA is more detrimental to bird management than many things.... A whole can of worms there, I'll try to leave closed.

NV, I was always taught that the Teddy R/elk mistake was a real learning experience for game management. Removing predators and not

allowing hunting is the best way to get just the opposite results of what you were looking for. The game managers in Wisconsin must

have taken this to heart. Just as we were getting enough elk of our own to hunt, they decided that we needed wolves. The wolves are

now doing a great job of hunting elk and I don't know if humans ever will. There are a lot of people in northern Wisconsin

who feel a lot more animosity towards the wolf than I do about coyotes. At least the coyotes arrived here of their own accord; not

shipped in by the DNR.

If pets are getting eaten by coyotes,people must not be minding their pets very well.Likely the same people who let their pets at large to chase game and cause problems for trappers when they get caught in legally set traps.
The more of those "pets" they eat the better.