I think hear in my area the overpopulation of black bears are the biggest problem with fawn mortality. Most of our deer hunters wont shoot bears. Most of them tell me that bear meat tastes bad. I offer to give them some of mine and tell them how to properly handle a bear after they get one. I have had some change their minds after eating some of my bear meat.

Bear meat is very good table fare with reasonable care taken during cleaning and processing. I try to get most of the fat trimmed well.

I think we lost a young goat a few months back. I didn't actually see the remains. We got some steep brushy land that is hard to cover on foot. We definitely got black bears. not sure what killed it.

I found a small dead fawn yesterday just about the size I had seen the doe with last week. It was on the small size compared to the other fawns here. She had a late birth it seems or it is a runt of sorts.

Had a coyote kill a yearling ram early yesterday morning. Left the carcass for the buzzards in hopes of drawing some attention. Glassed over the kill site from about 350 yards yesterday evening and low and behold there was wylie coyote having a snack. I made an attempt to stalk with in shooting distance but the cover was sparse, and wylie soon lost interest and got tired of chasing the buzzards. Followed him for about a mile, but could never make any ground due to only having the sparse cover of a few cholla cactus here and there. Well, he finally got over a hill and I knew I wasn't going to make the ground up fast enough to keep up so I let him go. Besides I had an idea of where he was going. Made a run around that pasture this morning and found the crossing where he went out last night, as well as another he has been using. Coyotes, and sheep, the work never ends.

Caught the ram killer, now to catch the male. Her repro tract shows she had 4 pups. Summer coyotes down here are ugly. hahaha

She looks to be in bad shape.

Yeah, she was pretty rough. Cost of raising puts when it's really hot and dry. The last (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) I caught with pups was thin like this, although this one had a lot more hair rubbed off. Caught the on it this pic this morning. She was not raising any pups and was in much better shape.

Nursing pups is very demanding on the females in areas that has limited food sources as well as being drained physically from the heat, little water and lack of adequate nutrition. These conditions many times are responsible for domestic kills since they are easy prey.

They all have guilty looks on their faces . . .

Hahahahaha!!I think the same thing every time I catch one this time of year. Since first commenting on this thread I've caught 7 going into or out of sheep pastures, or within a half mile of sheep pastures. All this country around here used to have sheep, and everyone trapped and had coyote drives. On top of that there were government trappers. Pretty easy to keep the numbers down when everyone is working on them. Now I have 1 out of 6 neighbors that traps as much or more than me. Oh well gotta do something.

First male I have caught in over a month. Caught him in a snare in a fence crossing. He got a good peppering with bb guns before I could dispatch him. hahahahaha

Bob what kind of sets did you use in catching the yotes this time of the year. Were right in the pasture or on the out skirts of the pasture.

We had them kill 3 ewe's afew years ago, I just couldn't believe they would drag a ewe down but I locked the ewes up and set snares coming into the pasture and caught 3 full grown coyotes, let the ewes back out with no problems, those 3 must have been hunting together

I have a farmer friend that just had 2 sheep killed early this week by coyotes, that makes 5 now the coyotes got off him this summer. I wish I could do something for him, I set up a trail cam Saturday evening to see what I can see. I do know they won’t be back for a few weeks that seems to be the norm for them

I set snares on the sheep trails on the interior of the pasture and a mix of ground sets along the fence and trail edges.

Scent posts and walk thru sets usually get them quick if they return to the kill sites. Problem is many times they kill and may not return for weeks at a time before they kill again. On many calls I get the coyotes always seem to kill many more lambs then they eat or try to drag off.

They kill for sport or fun it seems far to often. They will be teaching the pups how its done before too long.

that is the problem I have had in the past. Was called into a farm for some coyotes killing lambs. They came in twice before I was called. I was there for 2 weeks and they never returned.

Just caught one around a pasture where lambs had been killed and eaten. It took several days to get a permit and then 2 weeks after setting the traps. We have had a lot of rain and everything is green so sign is hard to find even on the 2 tracks but I knew they had to be around at some point. From the comments on this thread, sounds like I am not the only one seeing long wait times for them to come back.

Could a mod put this in the land trapping archives? Please and thank you