One Less

[Tom Flanigan]

I think Steve’s post on what Pheasant’s Forever thinks of predator elimination is telling. It’s something I’ve always believed, if the birds have food and cover, baring regional and local diseases, they will do fine despite predators. It certainly holds true on the property I hunt.

Quotes from the Pheasants Forever article…

“Bottom line: Through the addition and management of habitat, we not only decrease the impact predators have on existing nests, but also increase the number of nests and population size in the area. This management comes at a fraction of the cost of other predator reduction methods.”

“Predators will continue to eat pheasants and their nests, but weather and habitat conditions will drive population fluctuations.”

Habitat and feed is key in addition to weather conditions. The main reason for the loss of ruffed grouse in parts of the Northeast is the decline of habitat. Grouse need young forests and brushy areas to survive. Making matters worse, the mosquito borne West Nile Disease has had an impact as a one two punch on the diminishing grouse populations.

[Tom Flanigan]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Right Scott and I hardly ever see a red fox anymore... coyotes eat them too. The foxes that survive are the gray foxes that are able to climb trees.





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For me Dean, thats an absolutely horrible picture. It's hard to look at. I hate that coyotes take dogs.

[Dean Romig]

Coyotes are hunter-scavengers and will eat anything and everything they can get ahold of.

I have shot over and bedide deer on SC ranges while they continued to eat unconcernedly. Sure, being a range where shooting is the norm they had to get used to it (to just live) because the shooting never presented a threat to them. They don’t have the power of thought or reason.





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[Big D]

The deer that hang around my back yard in a suburb of Detroit, where no hunting is allowed, tolerate people well. Not so in northern Mich where hunting is OK. The least lttle sound or movement gets them going

[Tom Flanigan]

Originally Posted by Bruce Hering

My contribution to good coyote:



This one was crossing the dam on our lake. Amazing what a .270 with the right bullet can do at 110 yards.

We have way too many here in Southernmost IL. Our fur never gets good so no one really wants to spend the time trapping. Its basically shoot on site and yea, we use electronic callers.

They destroy deer populations and yes, they will kill adult deer, eat your small dogs and cats and can be a bit aggressive to humans and will kill larger dogs if in a pack of three or more.

Blew one off one of my setters several years ago. Dog came running back to me whining but did not see me and past me. Yote was about 15 yards behind dog. Yote met with a load of 8's to the head at 5 yards.

Done deal.

When I shot them in Saskatchewan I used a .270 with 130 grain bullets, my moose load. It really chews them up similar to your coyote. I used the 130 grain bullet because it shot best from my pre-64 model 70. Moose die rather easily and that 130 grain bullet was all I needed. They don't go far after being hit.

[Larry the Gun Guy]

News Flash: The state of Utah still has a bounty on coyotes of $50 a head, $50!

https://wildlife.utah.gov/predator-control-program.html

When I was in college in the late 70s in Idaho I made extra money shooting them at $35 each, just dead, sold to the skinners.

When people say coyotes will eat anything, I've seen them eating honey dew melons in fields in central California.

Great thread and interesting getting people's take on things.

[charlie cleveland]

they use to eat my dads watermelons up here in Mississippi....they would even roll the melons out of the patch into the woods sometimes it they would roll them 50 foot or fauther....unreal...charlie

[Tom Flanigan]

Charlie, that’s interesting that the coyotes rolled the melons. I’ve never heard of that before. In Saskatchewan, I’ve seen the damage caused by bears rolling on the oats in the fields. It made those areas a loss since you can’t combine oats that have been flattened. If they just ate the oats and didn’t roll on them the damage they caused would be much less. The interesting thing is that they never bothered the canola fields. Just the oat fields.

I had a farmer friend up there, called Snuffy, who just grew oats. He claimed that the bears did a lot of damage to his oats just before harvest and used to carry an ancient Winchester Model 94 on his tractor. He shot all he could that were within range and dragged them out of the fields and dumped them into the woods. When he heard that I had arrived in the small town, he would call my French Canadian friend Lawrence and tell him to send me over to shoot the bears.

I shot a total of only four over a couple of years before I decided not to shoot them anymore except for the somewhat rare cinnamon color phase. I got a cinnamon and never shot another bear. To me, it was just like shooting a big racoon, albeit with an incredible nose. I was watching a big boar bear in the fields and he was about 600 yards away but feeding toward my stand. I decided to take him when he got to the 200 yard range. I felt a momentary slight breeze on the back of my exposed neck. I thought no big deal, the bear was too far away to pick up my scent. I was wrong. In about a half minute his head went up into the air and he bolted into the woods.

The oat farmers up there don’t mind the coyotes. But bears are vermin to them.

[Gary Laudermilch]

Bears sure raise hell with corn fields around here. They wait for the corn to get in milk stage and then they can destroy a field in short order. Fields that border the woods are particularly venerable.

[Dean Romig]

Pertaining to bears in the corn...



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