CALLING ALL COYOTES Jim Mize
Flipping through a hunting sup-
plies catalog recently I stumbled upon a section filled with coyote calls. They had everything but cell phones to call coyotes. Devices included all manner of electronic, tube and mouth calls. With these calls, you could imitate
magpies, dying rabbits, and squeaking mice. In addition, there were calls for baby bobcats, crows, and even turkeys. All this just reinforced the notion that coyotes feed from an outdoor buffet. Basically, if a coyote could run it down, then imitate the noise that critter makes, a coyote may show up. All this reminded me of a story
told by a turkey hunter I know. During the spring season, he was set up in a blind yelping and putting to stir the heart strings of some bearded gobbler when a motion caught his attention. Off to the edge of the field, a coyote lay watching his hen decoy. This gentleman stopped calling to
see what the coyote had in mind. And it didn’t take long for him to find out. Slowly, it crept into the field, stalking almost to the decoy when it sped up and leapt into the air in front of the decoy. It missed. Anticipating that the decoy would take flight, the coyote had jumped in the direction the hen faced, and ap- parently planned to meet it in mid-air. In the split second it took the coy-
ote to recover, the hunter realized that this was learned behavior and probably not the first turkey to land on the coyote’s menu. Since the hunter really didn’t want to compete with a coyote for his turkeys, considering that the feathered birds were already challenging enough, he temporarily turned into a varmint hunter with coyotes in mind. Though it showed no signs, his decoy likely was relieved. Stories like this are common
among hunters. Coyotes are opportunis- tic feeders and for short spells will focus when a specific food is in abundant supply. When they do, they can create problems. Take deer, for example. In South Carolina, the deer herd in the mid-1990s was estimated at roughly
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1 million. By 2010, these same deer herd estimates were coming in at about 725,000. Coincidentally, the coyote num- bers took a significant jump over that same period. Having spent the previous decade with relatively low numbers, coyotes started expanding throughout the state. In a 2010 hunter survey, South Carolina hunters reported bagging 30,804 coyotes and they reported them from every South Carolina county. Over the last several years, biolo-
gists in the state have been studying the relationship between coyotes and fawn survival at the Savannah River site. Fawns drop in May and June in South Carolina, so biologists were curious to see how they fared with the increased coyote numbers. The short answer is “… not so well.” During their first ten weeks of life,
fawn mortality in the study averaged 70 percent. Of those fawns that were killed, 80 percent were attributed to coyotes. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) suggests that coyotes having this sort of impact statewide are contributing to the declin- ing herd. Furthermore, South Carolinians
take their deer hunting seriously. DNR studies show that 125,362 South Carolina residents hunt deer and another 15,100 non-residents hunted in South Carolina in 2010. Combined, the two groups gen- erated about $200 million in retail sales in the state. So as you might expect, the DNR has begun to study whether man- aging the coyote numbers during the late spring and early summer months when fawns are most vulnerable can be effec- tive enough to impact their survival rate. One of the changes to reduce the
coyote population has been legalizing night hunting for coyotes in South Carolina. Firearms are restricted to 22 caliber rimfire or shotguns with a shot size no larger than a BB, or sidearms of any caliber with iron sights and a bar- rel not exceeding nine inches. Artificial lights are permitted to be worn on hat or helmet, or as part of a belt system. In the DNR newsletter describing
the night hunting regulation, the head- line is “Hunters: Help Control Coyotes and Save Our Deer!” The following ar- ticle points out that South Carolina has seen a 30% decline in the deer popula- tion since 2002 and they want it to drop no further. Apparently, coyotes’ eating habits
can get them into all sorts of trouble. In conversations with biologists,
they point out that only hunting will not have a significant impact on coyote numbers. For starters, the cartoon char- acter Wile E. Coyote got his name for a reason. Coyotes have a keen sense of smell and over time can become wise to the calls from hunters. To help manage the coyote num-
bers, the DNR opened up night hunting to give hunters a better chance, since coyotes become most active beginning at twilight. As you might expect, some con-
cerned with fawn survival have turned their attention to focusing on coyote numbers just prior to the season when fawns are born. On plantations and clubs dependent on deer hunting, trap- pers are being hired to reduce the preda- tor numbers temporarily. Considering that male coyotes have been shown to have a range up to twenty square miles, significantly reducing coyotes over such a spread can be a huge undertaking. But the belief is that boosting fawn survival in those first ten weeks can increase the deer herd. Matching coyote calls to their
foods can become complicated, consid- ering reports on their late-night binges. Anecdotal stories of coyotes’ feeding habits include attacks on birthing cows and goat herds, even with donkeys there for defensive purposes. Coyotes will feed on poultry and feral cats. Since they are omnivorous, they also feed on berries, fruits, and melons. All this means that if you’re trying
to call in coyotes by sounding like some- thing edible, you have plenty of options. But if someone can provide me with a good melon call, I’m all ears.
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