Coyotes Are there really that many of them?

timekiller13

Old Mossy Horns
All of this talk about low deer numbers and overpopulation of coyotes got me thinking. Are there really as many coyotes out as we think? I have been hunting for 20 years. I have hunted in alleghany, Ashe, Alexander, buncombe, Catawba, Chatham, McDowell Granville Stokes Vance and Wilkes counties. I have been running trail cameras since 2003. On average I hunt 35 days a year, small game hunt another 10 days and spend another 30-40 scouting and working my leases. Not to mention all the time I spend camping and hiking. I keep extensive journals of my hunting experiences. In 20 years I have never seen a coyote while deer hunting. In fact, I have only seen 2 coyotes while engaged in a hunting activity. I did not get a coyote on trail camera until 2010. In total, I have less than 50 pictures of coyotes on camera. A lot of them showed up in Wilkes when we had our die off. They scavenged on the dead deer. I got 3 pictures of coyotes this year and the last one was in September. I have 12 trail cameras in the woods right now in 3 different counties. If coyotes are so abundant, then why are we not seeing more of them?
 

Ridgeline66

Ten Pointer
Contributor
I haven't had a pic of one since last August, I get about 5-6 pics a year at most, rabbits cats and deer around so in my area don't seem like many.
 

Songdoghunter

Twelve Pointer
All of this talk about low deer numbers and overpopulation of coyotes got me thinking. Are there really as many coyotes out as we think? I have been hunting for 20 years. I have hunted in alleghany, Ashe, Alexander, buncombe, Catawba, Chatham, McDowell Granville Stokes Vance and Wilkes counties. I have been running trail cameras since 2003. On average I hunt 35 days a year, small game hunt another 10 days and spend another 30-40 scouting and working my leases. Not to mention all the time I spend camping and hiking. I keep extensive journals of my hunting experiences. In 20 years I have never seen a coyote while deer hunting. In fact, I have only seen 2 coyotes while engaged in a hunting activity. I did not get a coyote on trail camera until 2010. In total, I have less than 50 pictures of coyotes on camera. A lot of them showed up in Wilkes when we had our die off. They scavenged on the dead deer. I got 3 pictures of coyotes this year and the last one was in September. I have 12 trail cameras in the woods right now in 3 different counties. If coyotes are so abundant, then why are we not seeing more of them?

There is a healthy population of coyotes in NC but they tend to be nomadic and more dense in some areas than others. I guess I have the unpopular opinion that they are NOT detrimental to our deer herd or other wildlife. They are opportunistic feeders. They'll eat roadkill or dead hole carcasses before they will kill to eat. While they eat small bones in animals, they cannot and do not eat skulls and legbones of deer. With the constant controversy surrounding their threat to our deer herd, my stock question is where are all the skeletons, skulls. etc? Look at any pile of coyote scat and 99% of it will contain mouse and meadow vole hair. There is no way I can account for how many I've killed. I've cut them open and looked in their stomachs and never found anything but stinking crap! Nothing that could be identified as a deer. Just my 2 cents.
 

nc rabbit hunter

Guest
Visit Sampson,Pender,duplin,johnston and Harnett.I see them weekly,on all cameras every check,and every nite I hear them! We may have more downeast.If u want to get a count load some sirens on a foxpro and theyll talk back to ya!!
 

nc rabbit hunter

Guest
Songdog every pile of yote crap on our leases downeast are nothing but deer hair.
 

Triggernosis

Ten Pointer
You don't see coyotes, but they see YOU. I'm like you, in that I spend countless hours out on the farm hunting, trapping, scouting, riding my motorcross bike through the woods, etc.. In all those years, I've only seen two coyotes and both of them were hauling :donk:donk:donk and I just coincidently caught a glimpse of them before they disappeared. A coyote's survival depends on him being stealthy...and he's very good at it!

Just this past spring, the landowner I'm now trapping coyotes for was watering his cows one evening at dusk. All of a sudden, two F-15's out of Seymour Johnson came screaming over at treetop level on a low-level training run (his farm is under a designated low-level flight path for S-J jets) and scared the schizzle out of him. It also scared the 4 coyotes that were surrounding him on all sides about 100 yards out, as they went to howling back and forth with one another for several minutes. He had never seen them and has fed and watered his cows daily since 2008. He called me and told me what happened and told me "They've got to go! Bring some traps!"

Coyotes know to stay away from us, lay low, and keep quiet ...unless frightened by F-15's.
 

timekiller13

Old Mossy Horns
There is a healthy population of coyotes in NC but they tend to be nomadic and more dense in some areas than others. I guess I have the unpopular opinion that they are NOT detrimental to our deer herd or other wildlife. They are opportunistic feeders. They'll eat roadkill or dead hole carcasses before they will kill to eat. While they eat small bones in animals, they cannot and do not eat skulls and legbones of deer. With the constant controversy surrounding their threat to our deer herd, my stock question is where are all the skeletons, skulls. etc? Look at any pile of coyote scat and 99% of it will contain mouse and meadow vole hair. There is no way I can account for how many I've killed. I've cut them open and looked in their stomachs and never found anything but stinking crap! Nothing that could be identified as a deer. Just my 2 cents.

I am with you. I don't think they kill near as many deer as people think they do. Do they get some? Absolutely! But they are not decimating the deer population. As for them being so elusive, I don't buy that crap. Bobcats are way more secretive creatures and I see them several times a year. I have yet to see any evidence of a deer killed coyote in any of my leases. I have found a few dead that coyotes had chewed in. But the deer had clearly died from natural causes or a hunters poorly placed shot and the yotes just cleaned up the mess.
 

mbh78

Ten Pointer
Contributor
I think where they are really hurting the deer herd is in the spring when the fawns drop. I don't believe they are going to take down very many adult deer, but they are hammering the fawns.
 

Triggernosis

Ten Pointer
I think where they are really hurting the deer herd is in the spring when the fawns drop. I don't believe they are going to take down very many adult deer, but they are hammering the fawns.

Correct. And a very well referenced "controlled" study on a military reservation where they were able to tag fawns in-utero, showed, I believe, something like a 70% mortality rate due to depredation by coyotes.
Jimmy Pierce can probably quote the specific numbers.
 

Songdoghunter

Twelve Pointer
I am with you. I don't think they kill near as many deer as people think they do. Do they get some? Absolutely! But they are not decimating the deer population. As for them being so elusive, I don't buy that crap. Bobcats are way more secretive creatures and I see them several times a year. I have yet to see any evidence of a deer killed coyote in any of my leases. I have found a few dead that coyotes had chewed in. But the deer had clearly died from natural causes or a hunters poorly placed shot and the yotes just cleaned up the mess.

Typically in any given season, there is a variety of roadkill and dead hole carcasses available for them to eat. They are not difficult to kill. Without getting back into another discussion on hogs and coyote problems, if they were the big hairy :donk:donk:donk deal some make them out to be, there would be plenty of predator hunting opportunities in this state. Just try to get an invite to thin a pack down or to go work on someone's hog problems. Just saying!
 
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GrizzlyBear

Old Mossy Horns
There are large numbers of coyotes in urban areas that are never seen. I think guaging numbers by sitings or trail cam pics isn't a good way to estimate numbers.
 

Triggernosis

Ten Pointer
I am with you. I don't think they kill near as many deer as people think they do. Do they get some? Absolutely! But they are not decimating the deer population. As for them being so elusive, I don't buy that crap. Bobcats are way more secretive creatures and I see them several times a year. I have yet to see any evidence of a deer killed coyote in any of my leases. I have found a few dead that coyotes had chewed in. But the deer had clearly died from natural causes or a hunters poorly placed shot and the yotes just cleaned up the mess.

Perhaps you don't buy the elusiveness "crap" as you call it, but it's kind a pretty well-documented characteristic of coyotes. Why do you think they call him "Wile-E-Coyote" (Wiley Coyote)?
On bobcats, I'm 48 yrs old. and have hunted eastern N.C. all of my life and have only seen TWO bobcats in the wild, ever. I've jumped them while rabbit hunting, and caught some in traps, but just seeing one out-and-about...only twice.
I do not think coyotes are "decimating" the deer population, however.
 

lasttombstone

Kinder, Gentler LTS
I had never even thought about a yote up here in northern Granville until a couple of years ago. Then I started hearing them behind the house in a cutover. Now, I hear them nearly every night I"m outside and anytime the aforementioned jets fly over. QBD hit my place trapping for a couple of weeks last year but didn't connect on one but I'm still getting pics on a regular basis, sometimes as close as 100 yds from the house at night. Would love to have someone experienced come try to thin them down.
 

bowhuntingrook

Old Mossy Horns
I place cameras at 3 different tracts. 1 tract I never had a coyote on camera tell this year and the other I've had more then ever. I've also seen more when walking around scouting, of course I don't see them when hunting but they are quick to find a dead deer in an area I've never seen them before.
 

QuietButDeadly

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
There are large numbers of coyotes in urban areas that are never seen. I think guaging numbers by sitings or trail cam pics isn't a good way to estimate numbers.

They are not called wiley coyotes for nothing. The fact that you do not see them is not a good indicator that they are not there. But I agree that some areas have more than others and I also do not believe they are going to be the end of the whitetail deer or the wild turkey. Sure, they will kill some but there are areas of the country where the coyotes and wildlife have coexisted in good numbers for decades.

Bobcats are another elusive critter. I have hunted the same property ever year since I was around 12 years old and I have never seen a bobcat on that property in all of the thousands of hours I have spent on that property. But when I started trapping that propery for coyotes a few years ago, I started catching the bobcats that I had never seen.

I have hunted areas in states where coyotes have flourished for centuries that have greater populations of turkey and deer than we have. BTW, they do not have as many cars on the road killing wildlife as we have either.

Having said all of that, I will shoot every coyote that I get a chance to shoot. I will also put a bracelet on their foot and give them a dirt nap every time I can get them to put their paw on my trap pan as well.

My .02 cents.....Your mileage may vary.
 

stilker

Old Mossy Horns
Cautious or skittish are the word for them here,not too smart though...I've had several walk right into a bullet;)
 

jab0106

Ten Pointer
fwiw, we have plenty of coyotes in wayne, lenoir, jones counties. see them regularly. dogs constantly break of on coyotes in jones, and every couple weeks in wayne i see a coyote cruising the fields. more than a handful of times, i have seen coyotes chasing healthy adult deer. a couple times they were within 100 yds of their quarry. have seen an 8pt cross a creek while bass fishing and the moment he hit the water a coyote was on the bank he'd just left watching him. cousin shot a deer last week and had a coyote on him before 2 mins past. walking the cutover paths in the spring, i have seen about 10 fawn carcasses. we do have a lot of cats also, but most tracks we find are coyote.

couple years ago we hadn't seen a deer from season opener to mid-november. then within 2 weeks, shot 10 coyotes on a 100 acre tract. deer started appearing in the fields and on the paths and cornpiles. trail cameras showed them the whole time and they were moving only at night before. every time a siren goes off we hear at least 2 packs howl to each other. i have had a pack split up on both sides of the path and yip to each other while closing in as i was exiting on after a bow hunt when i had left my flashlight at the truck--not a good feeling.

i attempt to shoot every coyote i see, regardless. roughly 5 in front of dogs, 1 with the bow, 20 while hunting, 2 while traveling.

15 years ago I had never seen a coyote.
 

oldest school

Old Mossy Horns
All of this talk about low deer numbers and overpopulation of coyotes got me thinking. Are there really as many coyotes out as we think? I have been hunting for 20 years. I have hunted in alleghany, Ashe, Alexander, buncombe, Catawba, Chatham, McDowell Granville Stokes Vance and Wilkes counties. I have been running trail cameras since 2003. On average I hunt 35 days a year, small game hunt another 10 days and spend another 30-40 scouting and working my leases. Not to mention all the time I spend camping and hiking. I keep extensive journals of my hunting experiences. In 20 years I have never seen a coyote while deer hunting. In fact, I have only seen 2 coyotes while engaged in a hunting activity. I did not get a coyote on trail camera until 2010. In total, I have less than 50 pictures of coyotes on camera. A lot of them showed up in Wilkes when we had our die off. They scavenged on the dead deer. I got 3 pictures of coyotes this year and the last one was in September. I have 12 trail cameras in the woods right now in 3 different counties. If coyotes are so abundant, then why are we not seeing more of them?

you have made the mistake of thinking that your experiences reflect the sum of the situation.

personally i have never seen a turkey while deer hunting- but they seem to be doing well in the state. :)
 

Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
They can be dealt with by putting out feces from the local pound as well...they are very succeptible to several canine diseases and it will go through the local population like wildfire. I think that's why you don't see that much sign in poor rural neighborhoods, but in sub divisions they have started being a real problem. Folks in those areas don't tend to have dogs that have kennel cough, distemper, mange...ect..so the yotes aren't affected by that feces. As we all know they will eat feces and mark their areas with their feces as well, so they spread the diseases quickly.
They started to really take hold on a large lease I was on, but were easily dealt with by putting out feces ..we never saw dead ones, but in less than a year we stopped seeing tracks on the roads. I've heard stories about landowners getting sick puppies from the pound and baiting them with that, but there's no way I could do that myself, too softhearted I guess.
 

Willie

Twelve Pointer
I've not seen one while hunting, but have heard them a couple times while waiting for LST duck hunting. I have seen one out at Jordan a couple summers ago while I was fishing. It showed zero fear of me...I was in the boat probably 30' from the bank, maybe less, when it came trotting by, stopped, and continued on.
 

Greg

Old Mossy Horns
I've only seen a few and gotten a few pix on my game camera, but in the past, they would regularly create quite a ruckus out back. I think they were running deer through the creek beds. I did find one skeleton that may have been their work (??). Not so lately, and I can only suspect it's because there aren't many deer to run. I sometimes hear them off in the distance, but not close like I used to. And, yes, it think they put a big dent in the fawn population.
 

timekiller13

Old Mossy Horns
Here are two good articles on coyote predation of deer, one recent, and one older:
The first one: http://news.psu.edu/story/315340/20...dicates-coyote-predation-deer-east-manageable

The second: http://www.gon.com/article.php?id=347
An interesting discussion in the second article is that coyotes affect "when and where deer feed" and may limit the amount of deer that hunters see. Hmmm....

Hmmm... according to those articles, bobcats, bears and uncontrolled doe harvest is just as big a problem, if not bigger, than coyotes.
 

Doc

Twelve Pointer
All of this talk about low deer numbers and overpopulation of coyotes got me thinking. Are there really as many coyotes out as we think? I have been hunting for 20 years. I have hunted in alleghany, Ashe, Alexander, buncombe, Catawba, Chatham, McDowell Granville Stokes Vance and Wilkes counties. I have been running trail cameras since 2003. On average I hunt 35 days a year, small game hunt another 10 days and spend another 30-40 scouting and working my leases. Not to mention all the time I spend camping and hiking. I keep extensive journals of my hunting experiences. In 20 years I have never seen a coyote while deer hunting. In fact, I have only seen 2 coyotes while engaged in a hunting activity. I did not get a coyote on trail camera until 2010. In total, I have less than 50 pictures of coyotes on camera. A lot of them showed up in Wilkes when we had our die off. They scavenged on the dead deer. I got 3 pictures of coyotes this year and the last one was in September. I have 12 trail cameras in the woods right now in 3 different counties. If coyotes are so abundant, then why are we not seeing more of them?

That's rare. I have killed many coyotes in buncombe and Catawba counties. Along with other wnc counties. Get tons of pics of them.

I guess you are fortunate to be in a pocket where there aren't many. Other pockets have a lot. Like I said, I'm in some of same counties as you and have pics weekly. Usually have a visual sighting bi monthly
 

Zombie

Old Mossy Horns
I Herr them most every hunt at dark. And every single night here at the house. Only seen one while hunting though.


Edit: I take that back. I have see 3 while hunting. 1 deer hunting and 2 turkey hunting.
 
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