I made a post several months back,,about my own personal thoughts on the decline of the grey fox study,, I was saying that I believed it to be habitat loss and raccoon exploding raccoon populations..
Although coyotes do contribute,,, I thought that the culprit was raccoons because of distemper and parvovirus..

Per the findings of this study,,, they tend to be exactly what I think…
I tried to find a better website for better reading but I was unable.
Hopefully this screenshot is readable

Haven't you always had a lot of coons there?

Along with declining habitat, farming chemicals?

Coon population has gotten a lot higher with fewer trapping them and less coon hunting. Its hard to run coon dogs when the places are now 5 to 100 acre tracks and city folks not liking dogs taht follow a track not property lines.

First year i had my farm late winter early spring i found 12 dead coons around the place. Some curled uo like thay were asleep others like they fell over walking. All in different states of decay. Asking around i was told likely distemper. I started trapping the farm after the first year or two catch numbers dropped now yearly catch numbers hold about the same year to year and I have not found any dead ones like the first year since. Going on 9 years now.

No matter how hard I trap and shoot them on sight I cant get any fewer it seems. Im a few hundred yards from 14 mile creek that runs directly into the Ohio river and have one of the largest tracks of woods around on the other side in my back corner is part of. I would need a lot of land owners geting on board to make a lasting impact.

Newest neighbor bought the place to deer hunt 141 acers. Is the kind that thinks zero human activity is needed to get large bucks. Nice guy just a but miss guided on that aspect. The deer will get used to human activity and adapt just fine.

We have had A lot of coons , but the trapping and hunting usually kept those numbers down… hardly anyone is trapping or coon hunting anymore.

Basically zero grays here in NE Indiana. Last one I caught was 1995, and never saw another one after that. They seemed to disappear when the coyotes became common, but coincidence is not necessarily causation.
For a few years I would ask the local furbuyers, and they had zero grays for the whole several years, a few reds, and lots of yotes. Then more recently the yote numbers declined sharply and the reds started increasing. Currently I am hearing a bit more yote songs, but nothing like 2000-2015 or so. I am still seeing a fair number of reds. Grays are nonexistent. I haven’t visited a furbuyer in a few years to ask.

They do good with coyotes where I'm at. They do great in logged and clear cut areas. Gives them cover and provides cover for rabbits. When I trap field edges I catch more coyotes with the rare red fox.

We have always had distemper killing our coon. Seems like the last decade instead of cynical it seems to stick around every year. Maybe a stronger strain or something. Our grays disappeared in about 2000. We have excellent habitat still, many more coyotes as grays disappeared. There are areas where grays and coyotes coexist but I would think some places with grays have large coon numbers? Maybe I’m wrong ?