A question for the coyote advocates

Possum

Banned
Many threads have discussed coyotes impact on deer and I’ve learned a lot from them. Many on this forum have stated that humans are the main cause of the deer number decline and that coyotes could never wipe out an entire species.

So can someone explain this to me...
Since I have owned my farm down in Wilkes county I have intensely trapped, hunted and monitored it with five trail cameras.

I have regular coyote pictures and have trapped dozens of coyotes, coons, bobcats, possums, etc.

In all my deer hunting sits, predator hunts, trapping, etc, I have never seen a single fox. Out of hundreds of thousands of trail cam pictures I have never got a single picture of a fox.

As far as I know, I am not surrounded by fox hunting clubs that killed them all off so I’m assuming the coyotes are the culprits.

So if coyotes wiped out both red and grey foxes in this entire area of a couple hundred acres minimum, how could someone say they could not to the same with deer fawns??
 

Timbo85

Senior Member
I don’t doubt that they could easily wipe out the whole fawn crop if that was all there was for them to feed on but fawns get fast very young and there is plenty of easier to catch food sources during the spring and early summer like rabbits, frogs berries turkeys and wat nots and there is many more deer around than foxes so I think it’s a lot easier to kill and run the foxes off than the deer heard , not fact just my thinking on it
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
How do you know that the coyotes killed the foxes? Or that there aren't any there? Gray foxes climb trees. Coyotes don't. I don't think coyotes can kill all the foxes. Jumping to the conclusion that you see no foxes, so coyotes are responsible, is like those folks on the bigfoot shows attributing every deer skull or leaning tree they find in the woods to a bigfoot, with absolutely no supporting evidence. An outbreak of distemper, parvo, mange, or rabies could just as likely be the culprit.

In at least three areas that I spend a lot of time, there are very robust long-term coyote populations, and also good populations of both gray and red foxes.

Coyotes will kill foxes. They will kill deer. They are not going to kill all of either on their own. If they could, there would be no deer or foxes out west where coyotes have lived for tens of thousands of years.

I also know that coyotes don't kill all the fawns, because I get hundreds of trailcam pics of coyote year to year, and see plenty of coyotes in the woods while hunting. I also get pics of fawns in the same areas, and see mostly-grown fawns every fall.

BTW, I am not a "coyote advocate." I've killed plenty myself. But, I will not go around spreading inaccurate information about how they are wiping out all the deer, when they aren't.

People over-shooting does do a lot more damage to the deer herd in the long run than coyotes, and there is supporting evidence for that. When you combine doe over-shooters and the coyote predation, you have a bad situation for deer.
 

GeorgiaBob

Senior Member
Coyotes are generalists, they will eat pretty much anything, and will choose the easiest meal every time. A coyote can and will munch on fruit, road kill, trash, and the kills of other predators. A newborn fawn would be an easy target, but only if the coyote is hungry enough to risk a painful, perhaps deadly, kick from the doe. And any injured or older deer is immediately on coyote radar.

But those disease carrying, carrion stealing, coyotes are only a real problem for people when they expand territory into people space (or people expand subdivisions into coyote space). They are a big problem for farmers with chickens, sheep, small children, or pets. Coyotes are very good at taking pets for late night snacks. In short, coyotes do NOT mix well with people - and that is the problem. It is not that coyotes "destroy" any particular wildlife population. It IS that coyotes make life more difficult for people - especially since people are supplying (mostly unknowingly) most of the food (trash, road kill, domestic stock, pets) that attract coyotes into conflict with people.

I have no problem with shooting and trapping coyotes to keep their populations in check - especially where they are intruding into people spaces. I doubt coyotes are responsible for eliminating complete populations of other wildlife, but I am willing to admit that - if that population was already under stress for other reasons - coyotes could contribute population declines.
 

mossyoakpro

Senior Member
I just started trapping this year due to the fact that our fawn production has diminished in the last few years. I am a person that researches everything to the fullest extent when I do it. Here is what some folks have said in regards to coyote vs. fox.

Coyotes do not necessarily "eat" the fox per say...what they do and have been documented on numerous occasions is that they drive them out because they are competition for food in the area.

This is probably what has happened in your area if you have a large presence of coyotes there.

JMO
 

Possum

Banned
NCH, I have no way to prove coyotes are the reason for the complete dissapearance of 100 percent of the red and grey fox population in this area. But what would you say could cause this if not coyotes?
I also have other locations that has what seems to be a small population of coyotes and healthy red and grey fox numbers. The Wilkes county land has way more coyotes and zero foxes. So you still believe that it is impossible for a relatively new introduced species to locally wipe out another species?
 

jakebuddy

Senior Member
As eluded to before red and grey foxes fill distinct niches in a given habitat, thus allowing them to coexist to an extent. Coyotes are generalist and will decimate a resource or food source and then switch to something else where foxes can't. I have noticed the same thing where I am.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
NCH, I have no way to prove coyotes are the reason for the complete dissapearance of 100 percent of the red and grey fox population in this area. But what would you say could cause this if not coyotes?
I also have other locations that has what seems to be a small population of coyotes and healthy red and grey fox numbers. The Wilkes county land has way more coyotes and zero foxes. So you still believe that it is impossible for a relatively new introduced species to locally wipe out another species?

I'd say that an outbreak of parvo, distemper, mange, or something of that nature would be more likely to wipe out foxes wholesale than coyotes would. Coyotes seem to be more resistant to disease than foxes, too, for some reason. There aren't as many foxes in my area since coyotes as there were before, but there is a stable population that has probably adapted to the new normal.

Introduced alien species can certainly throw a monkeywrench into local ecosystems, but since the southeast was originally full of small wolves almost identical to our current coyotes, I doubt if the "introduced species" thing has much impact. It's not like Guam, where there were never any snakes until they were introduced; and the birds had no defenses against them, and are now all dead.

I have a few trail camera sets where I commonly get almost daily pictures of both foxes and coyotes.
 

Possum

Banned
The small wolves may have looked similar to the coyotes we have now but the fact that man was able to nearly eradicate that species tells me it was a very different animal than what moved in it’s place recently.
 

mr otter

Senior Member
In my best year I trapped 178 grey foxes. What I’ve found is that grey foxes have a very small home range and since they can climb trees can live in close proximity to coyotes like NC said. Red foxes travel more and are easily killed by not only coyotes but also grey fox since reds can’t climb trees. Some locations have fox some don’t has nothing to do with coyote numbers. IMO foxes kill each other way more than being predated by coyotes!
 

Philbow

Senior Member
The small wolves may have looked similar to the coyotes we have now but the fact that man was able to nearly eradicate that species tells me it was a very different animal than what moved in it’s place recently.

All the larger wildlife species were almost exterminated in the South because of rural farm land use. Before World War II almost all the arable land was cleared and farmed. There was no place for deer, bears, wolves, Etc. to hide in the Piedmont or costal plains of Georgia. The deer and bears did survive in mountains and swamps but just barely.
Only After the farms were abandoned and the forests reclaimed the land were the deer, and eventually coyotes, able to survive.
 

mr otter

Senior Member
All the larger wildlife species were almost exterminated in the South because of rural farm land use. Before World War II almost all the arable land was cleared and farmed. There was no place for deer, bears, wolves, Etc. to hide in the Piedmont or costal plains of Georgia. The deer and bears did survive in mountains and swamps but just barely.
Only After the farms were abandoned and the forests reclaimed the land were the deer, and eventually coyotes, able to survive.
Coyotes didn’t migrate to Georgia until the 1970’s, pretty sure varmints were scarce because there were a lot more trappers back then
 

Philbow

Senior Member
My point is that prior to the 50's and 60's the rural land use would have prevented the establishment of coyote populations. Only when the fields, gardens, and pastures were abandoned was suitable habitat created. It also wasn't just trappers limiting varmints, all the rural inhabitants shot anything that would eat their crops, poultry or even look at livestock. It was not just DDT that impacted raptor populations. There was only one species of hawk, the chicken hawk.
 
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