There was a biologist (I forgot his name) on Predator Masters years ago that explained the more you kill the bigger the litter size is not some miracle from mother nature. It has everything to do with population dynamics of the female. Howling or lack thereof would have no affect on litter size either.

The jist of his explanation is that a heavy harvest on a population of coyotes in an “area” would typically kill more younger female coyotes, thus leaving more older females than younger females to be bred. Older females on average have less pup mortality than young of year female coyotes, so it would appear that the litter size increases when you kill off a lot of coyotes, when in reality the female coyotes that survived the harvest were actually just better at raising/keeping pups alive. In the circumstance that there isn’t a heavy harvest, more young of the year female coyotes would get bred and have litters, but due to their inexperience/ability to mother it would appear the overall average litter size in that area decreased. When you just have more younger female coyotes having pups and not being able to raise them like an older experienced adult coyote.

I hope that explanation makes sense, it does to me. I can relate it to my experience raising ranch fox. If I had an option to have 20 female fox, Id much rather have 3-4 year old females who have all raised a litter every year, than to have 20 young of the year 1st time females. I’d bet a lot on the older female group weaning a larger average litter size than the pup female group. Just my 2 cents.

they must have different coyotes than we do if those pups stay gentle

If correct, Why hasn't cattle and sheep ranchers put electronic howlers every 5 miles or so, Play them at night Jan.1st through April 1st. Couple- three years the coyote population should be in check.

litter size or weaned litter size? two very different things.......there is a ton of research done on this if someone just wants to read