I came across something pretty interesting this past weekend on the trapline and figured I would share it here. This past Saturday morning I caught a male coyote with a GPS tracking collar. At first I thought I had caught one of SCDNR's bounty coyotes good for a lifetime hunting license. But, this had no ear tag and when I checked the collar it was marked University of Georgia, with a phone number to contact. I couldn't reach anyone until Monday. A quick google search showed this was part of a tri state coyote study by the deer laboratory at UGA. You can read more about that program here

http://www.ugadeerresearch.org/tri-state-coyote-research-project/

Here is my catch picture




I emailed back and forth with the directors of the project and they sent me all of the information on the coyote I caught, including the process pictures of when they caught it. When I opened the picture darned if it wasn't Mark June and Rusty Johnson, processing this exact coyote just over 2 years ago.





I usually sell everything live market, but this coyote was missing about half of his lower jaw from some kind of incident. His jaw was completely healed over though, and he appeared to be healthy. My buyer didn't want him due to his jaw, so I decided to do something I usually don't do, I cut the collar off and let him go. I figured if he was lucky enough to have been caught by 2 elite trappers, 1 amatuer, lost a jaw along the way, and was still doing fine, I wasn't going to be the one to end his story. Given the date on the collar, I assumed it was no longer being tracked. If the collar was in date, I would have let him go to aid in the study. Here is the email I got back from Joseph Hinton, who is involved in the project.



"Hey Will,

We caught that coyote a few miles south of Ward, SC on January 10, 2016. I attached a Google Earth file of his collar locations. The capture site was a just south of Mile Bridge Way and east of SR191. I also attached 2 photos of SC37M being processed and released. You will see that he was a healthy coyote pup (~ 9 months) when we caught him. He weighed about 32 lbs. Coyotes are typically born between March and May and, given that he was likely born in April 2015, he’s approaching his 3rd year of life.

His radio-collared malfunctioned 9 months after deployment, so the locations provided begin in January 2016 and lasted through September 2016. He dispersed southeast about 100 miles from his capture location before localizing a few miles east of where you captured him. Since his last locations were in that area from July–September 2016, he’s likely a resident breeder and we failed to capture where he found a mate and established a territory. I suspect that happened after the 2016 hunting season and in the area that you caught him. He likely produced at least one litter in 2017, so you may have caught some of his pups and mate.

The jaw injury occurred after we released him. Given my experience, I think he was shot in the mouth by a hunter. The injury will definitely affect his ability to hunt large prey, but I suspect his diet is largely small mammals, rabbits, and fruit. As long as his carnassials (upper 4th premolar and lower 1st molar) are still present, he’ll able to hunt most of available prey in the area because those are shearing teeth that act like scissors when he bites down. For mammalian prey like rabbits and small fawns, he only needs to pounce on them and get enough of them in his mouth to crush their head or backbone. The canines are more useful for holding down and injuring larger prey like adult and juvenile deer.

I think letting him go was fine, especially given that he has an odd and conspicuous injury. If your trail cameras photograph him or should you pick him up on your trap line again, you’ll definitely know who it is and that he’s a resident animal that’s been around for a while. If you had put him down, he would have been replaced by a healthier coyote with a full set of teeth. Coyotes can live up to 10 years in the wild but typically don’t make it past 4 years. Since he’s in an area that is hunted and trapped, I suspect he has another year or two left. Everyone’s luck eventually runs out, though he seems to have more luck than the average coyote.

Regards,
Joey"


Here is the picture showing his path



This experience really showed me how little I knew about dispersal and how far they will travel to find a mate. Also I think it's pretty cool to say I caught the same coyote that Mark June and Rusty Johnson caught. That's another thing I love about trapping, you never know what will be waiting for you.

That's cool, but I would have killed him

This is really cool!! I also think its cool that you let him go. I didnt realize they even had programs like this. Great stuff!

Awesome story. My best catch was a red-tailed hawk banded by one of the true raptor banding legends 24 years earlier when it was a fledgling. It was returned to the wild as well. At the time it was the second oldest wild living RTHA reported to the lab. The oldest was 25.

***Clarification: this bird was caught on purpose during a bird banding operation, with traps designed to capture raptors.*** NOT as a non-target during fur trapping.

x2. The only good yote is a dead one. Too many of them things. Thats so cool that you caught the same dog that they caught! Ill bet you never would have thought thatd happen lol

Cool story. 100 miles is a long way to travel.

Yeah I knew I would get some flack about not killing him. Sometimes you go with your gut. I did find it interesting to see that I-26 and I-95 seemed like boundary lines. Gave me some more food for thought about areas to trap. The screenshot of the google earth I posted is cool, but actually zooming in on the points in google earth to see how he traversed rivers and highways was very neat.

I trapped a large male coyote in northern maine this past november that had tags in both years..when I got my fur checked with a Maine state warden he called a biologist to verify the tag info and it turned out the state had live trapped lynx between 2006 til 2011 and caught some coyotes also so they to got tags..I never considered that they live that long.He was pushing 50 lbs and was as fat as a hog!

Yeah but come on, on this site you would have caught flack if you would have been the one to put him down too.

Very cool info. I'm always fascinated by gps studies on animals. I've also been guilty as releasing a few animals others said I shouldn't have. You caught them so do whatever you want with them. You'd get criticized here for opening a can of Vienna Sausage the wrong way.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I would never have guessed that a coyote would have moved 100 miles in dispersal. Wow.

That’s pretty cool, lucky coyote there. Been caught twice and let go lol

I wonder if if was in a 550 both times?

Matt, looks to be. I caught him front left foot in 550. Looks like Mark and Rusty had him on the front left foot as well, and it appears to be a 550.

I bet he will be hard to catch now, interesting info on movement, would have thought it would be more oval, maybe terrain dictated his routes

Well it sure would be cool if the next person gets him in a 550.

thanks for sharing I would have let him go to

Cool story and thanks for sharing. I was talking with Neal last week and he told me you had caught one with a tracking collar. Good to hear the full story.

Very cool, neat Trophy