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[Dean Romig]

Coyotes in the area of VT that I hunt take down.. or more descriptively, kill fawns, adult deer and moose calves-of-the-year. I see it every fall/winter in the hunting seasons I am there.
I will shoot one whenever I see one while knowing the scientific facts are that no matter how many coyotes we hunters kill it will not affect their population. Others will quickly fill the vacuum.





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[Tom Flanigan]

Coyotes certainly have their place in nature. We tend to view them as enemies, but they are just trying to survive. They don’t hunt for sport like we do and they don’t take more than they need. In my opinion, they have more of a right to game than we do.

In some areas, they might actually be a benefit to wild populations. I believe they are on the property I hunt although I hate the thought of them taking fawns.

I have nothing against people who kill them. I understand why. I used to shoot them too in Canada. But I’ve changed a bit over the years. I now no longer kill anything I don’t eat and am more in tune with the coyotes and other animals place in nature.

[Steve Hodges]

Originally Posted by Andrew Sacco

They eat birds, and lots of them. I have a friend who is a wildlife biologist for NY State and he said they eat porcupines (from the butt hole side to gain entrance) and grouse/squirrels/mice and rabbits. They are killing machines. There's a video out there somewhere of one chasing a squirrel down in the tree and killing it. One of my employees had her whole chicken coup killed by one fisher (which she finally saw and killed). Took the heads off all the birds. Worst part is she really couldn't figure out how it got in it was a pretty tight enclosure with netting above.

https://www.nhregister.com/news/arti...t-11588390.php

Having been a trapper in NH in my younger days I have trapped many Fishers. Every one I skinned had a few Porky quills imbedded under there skin. They are not "killing machines". They do not kill for pleasure. They are a predator that preys on all sorts of critters in order to survive. Do they eat birds, absolutely, but so do raptors, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, wolves and weasels. As with all predators they they play a crucial role in the environment. Your chicken coop story sounds a lot more like the work of a weasel than a Fisher. If the fisher was not caught in the coop I suspect that he/she was not the culprit, but even so, he/she was just trying to eek out a living. I wish folks would stop putting human traits on predators such as labeling them "killing machines". They just want to eat and raise there young. Look, I am no fan of Coyotes but where they occur they have filled a void that was lacking by another predator. As for your video story of a fisher killing a squirrel, of course they do!!! And there ability to chase one down for lunch has me in awe of there hunting skills.

[Tom Flanigan]

Amen

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Stephen Hodges

Having been a trapper in NH in my younger days I have trapped many Fishers. Every one I skinned had a few Porky quills imbedded under there skin. They are not "killing machines". They do not kill for pleasure. They are a predator that preys on all sorts of critters in order to survive. Do they eat birds, absolutely, but so do raptors, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, wolves and weasels. As with all predators they they play a crucial role in the environment. Your chicken coop story sounds a lot more like the work of a weasel than a Fisher. If the fisher was not caught in the coop I suspect that he/she was not the culprit, but even so, he/she was just trying to eek out a living. I wish folks would stop putting human traits on predators such as labeling them "killing machines". They just want to eat and raise there young. Look, I am no fan of Coyotes but where they occur they have filled a void that was lacking by another predator. As for your video story of a fisher killing a squirrel, of course they do!!! And there ability to chase one down for lunch has me in awe of there hunting skills.

Steve, you and I, and a lot of others in the PGCA, have a mutual friend who raised chickens as a food source for he and his wife, along with rabbits for the same purpose. He had built and extremely strong and secure weasel-proof chicken house within the confines of the fenced in (against weasels and such) chicken yard. Something got into the chicken house at night and dragged every one of their chickens out and killed them all, stopping to eat just the more select parts of just a few of them. Somehow the marauder got in through the screened 3" opening under the sides of the vent cap some 5 feet above the floor of the house - an incredibly strong and determined animal and by all counts a "killing machine." Judging by the carcass, it was determined that our mutual friend's wife had Parkerized a large fisher in the act. There's no weasel that strong - but being of the same genus, is more than a little bit likely to simply enjoy killing.





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[Tom Flanigan]

I remember years ago, it was fashionable to label predators as vicious killers that should be destroyed whenever possible. I have in front of me an Outdoor Life article from May 1938. One of the articles is called “Villain’s of the Wood and Field”. “If the coyote and skunk are skilled at annoying outdoorsmen, they are positive geniuses at defeating his efforts to wipe them out.” Also in that magazine is an advertisement for Winchester small bore rifles for killing “pests”. The advertisement features a picture of an owl.

I guess, to this day, vestiges of that sentiment still linger. Much of my hunting is on a large estate that has large populations of predator’s. I plant acres of sorghum every year to provide food and cover for the pheasants, but we still lose quite a few. By far the most effective predators on the property are hawks. It is very common to find dead pheasants with their breast eaten and the rest of the bird remaining. They don’t need to work to get every bite when there is plentiful food.

The foxes and coyotes generally take the whole bird. Predation by these animals is not a factor on the property. New York, as some other states, have hunting seasons on these animals to protect them. I guess these states don’t see these predations as “killing machines”

Hawks and owls are protected, as they should be. I don’t begrudge the hawks on the property their pheasant kills. Unlike myself, they are eating to survive.

[Joe from MO]

Originally Posted by Tom Flanigan

I remember years ago, it was fashionable to label predators as vicious killers that should be destroyed whenever possible. I have in front of me an Outdoor Life article from May 1938. One of the articles is called “Villain’s of the Wood and Field”. “If the coyote and skunk are skilled at annoying outdoorsmen, they are positive geniuses at defeating his efforts to wipe them out.” Also in that magazine is an advertisement for Winchester small bore rifles for killing “pests”. The advertisement features a picture of an owl.

I guess, to this day, vestiges of that sentiment still linger. Much of my hunting is on a large estate that has large populations of predator’s. I plant acres of sorghum every year to provide food and cover for the pheasants, but we still lose quite a few. By far the most effective predators on the property are hawks. It is very common to find dead pheasants with their breast eaten and the rest of the bird remaining. They don’t need to work to get every bite when there is plentiful food.

The foxes and coyotes generally take the whole bird. Predation by these animals is not a factor on the property. New York, as some other states, have hunting seasons on these animals to protect them. I guess these states don’t see these predations as “killing machines”

Hawks and owls are protected, as they should be. I don’t begrudge the hawks on the property their pheasant kills. Unlike myself, they are eating to survive.

As someone who has bow hunted deer for a very long time... I will say this about coyotes.... They are so thick where I hunt, that if you do not recover your deer within an hour or so... More than likely they will be on it, before you can get to it. I am very careful about what shots I take, and luckily for me, in the last 10 years I have yet to have a deer go more than 50 yds, and all have died within minutes of being arrowed. I did have to let a buck go over night several years ago, and by the time I recovered it at first light next morning, there wasn't much left of it other than the head..... The can wipe out a deer fairly quick.

I shoot every coyote I see while deer hunting. I know I don't even begin to put a dent in their numbers. Also, large coyote populations can be very hard on fawns in the spring. As for pheasants, even with a large population of coyotes, I would think they have very limited success on killing many of those, or any other game bird for that matter. Hawks are much better at that, and they are protected.

[Tom Flanigan]

Joe, I hunt deer also and with the bow. I have for the last 63 years. I don’t take a deer very late in the evening any more. Instead of staying in until dark like I used to, I now stop hunting when I no longer have enough light left to follow up a shot. I do it for two reasons, one is that a deer left overnight in Indian Summer weather will spoil and second, coyotes will certainly find it and reduce the carcass to skin and bones very quickly.

I don’t take a deer out of the woods. I carefully bone it out in the woods and take it back to my refrigerator (for aging) in pieces. Invariably, the next day the parts of the carcass I left behind are pretty much cleaned up.

Up in Saskatchewan some years ago, we had a surge in the coyote population that endangered the pronghorns in the southern portion of the province. If I remember correctly, the pronghorn season was closed in some areas. The coyotes took an inordinate number of fawns. Prior to the coyote surge, non-residents were not allowed to remove pelts from the province. During the surge residents and non-residents both were encouraged to kill them whenever possible and the ban on taking pelts out of the province was rescinded.

Given favorable conditions predator populations can get out of control in certain areas at times. But their numbers are generally managed by nature over a period of time. Predator populations are highest where there is an abundance of food. Once the food diminishes, they move on. The problem is that they sometimes compete with humans for the same resource and for this they are often vilified.

But I’ll go back to a statement that I made in an earlier post. Since they kill for survival, I believe they have more of a right to game than we do. I firmly believe that, knowing that sometimes it is necessary to kill them in areas where the population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land. It provides a more immediate response than nature.

[Dean Romig]

We are amazed that our bird dogs can pick up the scent of a pheasant, grouse, quail or woodcock at twenty or thirty yards or even more. But the nose of a predator is even keener because he survives by his sense of smell. They hunt at night when the ground roosting birds are at their most vulnerable and the predators know this. They can sneak in soundlessly and kill them in their sleep. I am really surprised any of these ground roosting species are even as plentiful as they are today and I’m not surprised in the least by the “kill em on sight” of the old time plantation owners and managers.





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[Bob Jurewicz]

Here is a picture of the 52 lb. coyote Harry shot that he mentioned on the previos page.