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As a young boy we didn't have fire ants, armadillos, or coyotes. Then someone let fire ants off a ship. Then armadillos came from the west to eat the fire ants. Then coyotes followed the armadillos to eat them. A little humor, but now that the fire ants and armadillos are scarcer the coyotes have to eat turkey and quail eggs. I think grouse nest on the ground too and can't believe coyotes will help the grouse. "Lord help us", when the pigs finally get here.
Mike

I remember the appearance of those three as you do, Mike. First, in my area of GA, the coyotes began showing up in the mid to late '70s. It was pretty certain by the GA DNR that they had been transported into GA by fox hunters. Then, I saw my first fire ant bed in '80 or '81. Then we began seeing road killed armadillos in the mid to late '80s.

I never dreamed the GA DNR would be so successful at growing the deer population that they would become such a nuisance to vehicles and row crop farmers like myself. Politics makes strange bedfellows, I once heard. Agree, because now the coyotes kill tens of thousands of fawns annually. MO did a study that showed that a female coyote kills an average of 15 fawns annually. That's a big help to me.

50 years ago, small towns and farms were what one would see in putnam county, ny...lots of grouse, cotton tails and stocked pheasants...then the turkeys showed up...and then came the coyotes and more people, living in suburban type housing...by 2000, small game was mostly gone...and so was I...refuged north to NH...sadly, found a similar situation up here....became have shotgun will travel migrant...found birds in upper mid west and far west...never ventured to Canada with shotgun...

The Nutty Professor is heavily invested in his bullshit claims about the actual effects of coyotes and other efficient predators on game bird populations.

We know that they can and do co-exist. But it is simply ignorant to refuse to see that a predator that hunts 24/7/365 can suppress or have a very deleterious effect upon ground nesting birds like ruffed grouse. I have never seen even one study that claimed small game populations increased long term after coyotes moved into an area. And we never see legions of bird hunters who are glad to see coyotes expanding their range... only a few know-it-all environmentalist wackos like the Nutty Professor or LGF. They might have some initial benefit by killing off other predators such as fox, skunks, or feral cats. But it won't be long before they are depleting game bird populations, along with rabbits, fawns, and many other species... including domestic pets.

Using the Nutty Professor's logic, farmers who raise poultry would have larger flocks if only they permitted foxes, hawks, and coyotes to infiltrate their pens and coops.

When you see a coyote, you should follow the advice of Wayne Gretzky..."You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

What do you make of that, professor? There were lots of grouse there and no coyotes.

der, one side of my mom's family were farmers located outside of dothan, al...and the other side, also farmers, were from around chipley, fl, just south of there...

remember hearing depression era stories from elders of both tribes...

including about the shortage of meat...

hoover hogs, aka armadillos, along with mostly any other mammal, became table fare...

hoover hogs an possums were captured live and kept penned and fed a diet of sweet potatoes...

in order to make erm fit fur the table...

back in the fifties, my cuzin Addison still kept ah possum or two for special occasions, like when I showed up...

he also taught me how to chew...

an udder thangs of importance...

later, in 1960, ah got kidnapped by Yankee gypsies an taken north...

landed in ah whole new world...

the Hudson river valley of New York state...

but, then that is the beginnin of ah nutter story...

The predator that is most often cited in grouse predation is the goshawk.

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6337&context=wilson_bulletin

The wild card for coyotes in this part of the world is wolves. Predation of coyotes by wolves is a thing, but, not totally understood.



I suspect it is only a matter of time before some meth loser who gets in over his head in the northern third of this state has a wolf encounter, likely brought on by hypothermia and not being prepared for the conditions he or she finds themselves in. The backward nature of the state of Minnesota is such that they named a hunter walking trail after the last meth head who never understood the Boy Scout motto (be prepared) in northern Minnesota, and ended up wet, cold, and alone on a night he should not have.

Hard to get through life when you die of exposure.

Best,
Ted

last time I hunted northern MN was in 2005...

north of ash lake...

lots of grouse...

and wolf tracks...

later visited international wolf center, a rehab facility in Ely...

became an admirer of these wonderful creatures...

https://wolf.org/

I think the Nutty Professor will be in typical denial about what Ed says. He will never admit that Ed is much smarter and more observant than him.

There's a chance that there might have been a small population of coyotes in Putnam County 50 years ago, but not yet well established or a real threat to small game.

It appears that most eastern coyotes probably first appeared in Northeast Pennsylvania in the 1960's, and they migrated there from Canada and then upstate New York. It seems likely that the Eastern Coyote is a hybrid sub-species that resulted from cross-breeding with Gray Wolves in Canada. They are generally larger than western coyotes. One mangy male I shot a few years ago measured 56 inches from nose to tail. Many are larger. From northeast Penna., they gradually migrated south and west. I never saw any sign of coyotes in several Central Penna. counties while I went to Penn State, but they are certainly there now. I never saw or heard any sign of them in Northwest Penna. until the early 1990's. Prior to that, we had a pretty good population of ruffed grouse and turkeys too. Soon after I saw their tracks and began hearing them howl at night, I also began finding piles of grouse and turkey feathers and bones, along with coyote tracks. And it didn't take long until there was a very noticeable decline in numbers of birds, cottontail rabbits, and other small game animals. Cottontails are prolific breeders, and used to be seen everywhere. I ate a lot of rabbit stew when I was in school and money was tight. Now you can go weeks without even seeing one. Coyotes undoubtedly contributed to the failed efforts to re-establish ringneck pheasants, so they are very rarely seen except where they have been stocked.

There was no shortage of similar reports and complaints from other hunters. Ed's observations are accurate, and reflect those of most Pennsylvania hunters. I know some guys who enjoy hunting coyotes with hounds, but nobody else is happy to have them. Personally, I believe that grouse co-existed with wild turkeys much better than they do with coyotes, because when turkey numbers really exploded in areas where I hunt, there were still good numbers of grouse. But we know that turkeys do compete with grouse for food, and that they are nest predators that will eat game bird eggs. However, the arrival of coyotes put a hurt on turkeys too. Human population in Pennsylvania has only increased by about 1 1/2 million people since the 1960's, and most of that growth has been in urban areas. So habitat loss in rural areas is not nearly as bad as in many other states.

Wolves are predators of coyotes. Coyotes are predators of foxes. Before coyotes came in here we had a plethora of reds and greys. Still got lots of greys because they can climb a tree to escape a coyote, while reds cannot. Reds are all but gone because of this.