Coyotes are incredible killers. In the battle of predator and prey, the predators win. As an intelligent predator, we need not be some passive player in the game of predator vs. prey, but should an active role to keep nature in balance. Predators don’t abide by game laws that protect and promote game populations and “letting nature take its course” is the biggest mistake an active conversationalist can take.
Let’s Hunt Quail and Pheasants
I grew up hunting Bob White quail and ring-neck pheasants near my home in rural Maryland and Southern Pennsylvania. Flushing 10 coveys of quail and half a dozen pheasant roosters was common on a day’s hunt.
Today, bird hunters stay home. Wild populations are gone, completely eliminated by predators and habitat loss. Without a fur market to motivate trapping, prime bird rearing habitat is overrun with raccoons, skunks, opossums, foxes, and coyotes. Worse yet, the general public seems not to care. Only hunters, the true conversations, have taken steps to jump start populations.
Hunting in Packs
A single coyote has a modest impact on game animals, yet coyotes rarely live alone. They breed each spring and produce a pack of animals that greatly magnifies predation. This YouTube video dramatizes how large these beast can become. What deer or other game animal could survive an attack by four ‘yotes each weighing 40 pounds or more?
Do Your Part
With deer season underway, keep alert for traveling coyotes and carry a call or squeaker tube in your pocket. As legal shooting light ends for deer hunting, blow a few calls that may lure a coyote into point blank range. Shooting coyotes after legal shooting hours (for game animals) is legal in most states and you’ll be doing the local herd a favor. Check out the action when coyotes are “in your face.”
