Coyote Ethics?

[Ludarue]

What's the biggest coyote you guys have seen or shot and in which state?

Around SW Ohio I usually come across 30-45 lbs. But my dad claims to have seen one a few weeks ago trotting through a field of 70lbs.

[Hog Buster]

Hmmm, interesting dichotomy here. Many armed to the teeth, two or three guns and a bandoleer of ammo to eliminate two legged vermin, without many ethical problems. Yet many here have major ethical problems about eliminating four legged vermin??..... Ah, the human species...... a dichotomy all it’s own.

[James R. Burke]

Just myself I respect someone who wont because of whatever the reason, and they dont have a problem with some one who will shoot a yote. I myself will hunt for them. Have not taken a bunch but got a few. In Michigan up untill around 1980 give or take a year or two they use to pay a bounty. I believe it was 15.00 for a male and 25.00 for a female. They dropped the bounty but left them open all year. Now they have a season on them. It is pretty long, and you can't shoot them during deer season. For most of the season you need to wear hunter orange. They even have a season here on crows now, and that one is not that long. It used to be open all year long. Also here in the winter there is a bar that holds a yote contest. I believe you need a two person pair. At the end of the day they award some prize's, and have a wild game cook out. ( Except for the yotes) I believe a few trappers are there to buy pelts, if there not blowen up to bad.

[Come and take it.]

In Kentucky Coyotes are not native to the state. They do not fill a niche as the fish and wildlife service seem to want to promote. I have always been suspicious as to how breeding populations of Coyotes made it across the mississipi in the last century when they never made it across in all the centuries and mellenia before. I and some of my friends have wondered if Coyotes were deliberately introduced into the eastern US to act as a predator to keep population of herbivores down.

They (coyotes) should be utterly culled and native predators such as fox, cougar, bear, bobcat and more purer strains of Red Wolf should be nursed back into the region. Now we have a healthy population of Bobcats throughout Kentucky and the occasional black bear passes by even in central Kentucky.

non-native Coyotes are direct competitors of native Bobcats and foxes and any other predators brought into the Kentucky region. I hope that one day Cougars will get re-established.

Also any non-native wildlife whether feral versions of domesticated animals or otherwise, should be culled and in most cases left to rot. crows, buzzards, possums and flies have to eat too you know.

[langenc]

Not to hijack but I wonder how some feel about WOLVES.

In some areas the kill 2/3's of newborn deer/elk.. They got to eat something. They dont like sticks/bark.

[cornbush]

I have no qualms of shooting them on sight.

I guess it's where you live and whether you have to deal with them.

Not to hijack but I wonder how some feel about WOLVES.

Wolves and coyotes are excellent targets.

I believe it was "the outlaw josey wales"--"Worms and buzzards gotta eat too"

If this thread goes into wolves it's doomed, way to hot of a topic.

Predators have their place, but man has had his hand in the cookie jar for so long that we have created an unatural balance. I don't shoot every coyote I see, but I don't hesitate one moment to put one on the ground either.

[Huntergirl]

Yeah Cornbush Utah. Got that right. Don't EVEN....

[Brandy]

(that I rolled with a deerslug in the Finger Lakes area of upstate NY) in my WY house that the locals think is a German Shepard cause it's so much bigger than our WY Yotes.
Probably cause they eat a lot better in the East nor do they have Wolves killing them (yet).
No Puma in NY though.....

[hogdogs]

Come and take it, One very obvious way that yotes, dillars and other animals made it across the mississippi and other rivers in the last hundred years and never before is roadway and rail bridges...

Brent

[okgunman]

I do not have a problem with killing an animal who poses a threat to my dogs, livestock, or even pesters my residence. That being said, I'm not going to go out and kill a Coyote for fun, there has to be a reason for it...

[Crankylove]

I'm not going to go out and kill a Coyote for fun, there has to be a reason for it...

To me, that arguement dosen't really make sense if you hunt other animals, just not coyotes. Many of posters in this thread say they will hunt deer, elk, pheasants, hogs, etc., but not coyotes, because there is no reason for them to shoot a coyote. In this day and age, when you can get fresh produce from one side of the country to the other in less than a day and a half, or crab and salmon from Alaska to my local restaraunt in less than 24 hours, and beef, chicken, and pork cheaper then the cost of elk or deer meat (after factoring in all the costs of my big game hunts), there really is no need to hunt anything. The days of hunting to provide meat for you family don't really exist now as they once did. I have seen what an over abundance of 'yotes can do to local game poplulations, as well as farmer's livelyhoods........and thats all the reason I need to drop them as I see them.

[roy reali]

For the record, food is about the worst reason for hunting. 99.999999% of critters killed don't "NEED" to be killed for food. It's a by-product that hunters use as a PC excuse to justifly their hobby. If the only reason to keep hunting legal is the food value of the game shot it basically equates to have NO reason.

Great response, I am going to use this for all the I won't shoot what I won't eat crowd. Thanks!

[TMUSCLE1]

Hmmm, interesting dichotomy here. Many armed to the teeth, two or three guns and a bandoleer of ammo to eliminate two legged vermin, without many ethical problems. Yet many here have major ethical problems about eliminating four legged vermin??..... Ah, the human species...... a dichotomy all it’s own.

That's a good apples and oranges arguement that should probably be discussed in another thread.

I never said I wouldn't shoot one...we just don't have them here in abundance at all. Regardless, it is still hunting so I think we as hunters, regardless of the reason, should take our game with a humane shot. That was the only point I was trying to make.

[jgcoastie]

Now for my opinion...

When I was younger and still living in rural Mississippi, rabbit hunting was one of my favorite pursuits. My Dad and I raised beagles for running rabbits and we'd hunt every chance we got. It wasn't so much about getting the rabbits, but about hearing the dogs "sing" to us when they got on a bunny. We probably only saw about 50% of the rabbits that the dogs raised up and only actually shot about half of those. I love rabbit meat; when cooked properly it surpasses any other wild game for me.

There is no greater disappointment than heading into the brush for opening day of rabbit season with four of your best dogs, and finding zero rabbits. None. Zipola. Why were there no rabbits? Coyotes. Old yote tracks and bedding areas were everywhere, all over our prime rabbit hunting spots.

That's the day I started hunting coyotes, hard. I did my best to thin out the coyote population so the rabbits could replenish again. I hunt coyotes so my aging Dad and Granddad can enjoy getting out in the woods with the dogs hot on a rabbit's tail.

I'll make every attempt to find someone who can benefit from the pelts, but if nobody wants them, I'll pile them up with some brush and diesel and light a match.

[publius]

I have no problem shooting any varmint that causes harm to my eye: coyotes, opossums, armadillos, skunks, raccoons, hogs, etc. they all cause me problems, killing fawns, baby quail&ducks&turkeys, digging holes in cattle pastures, crop destruction. I completely respect a persons moral code not to shoot them.

[Art Eatman]

Storebought meat doesn't taste the same as wild meat. Doesn't matter how you cook it, it's different. So, everybody has an equal right to the flavors they prefer...

Coyotes? They compete with me for quail, is about the only reason I mess with them some. I'd get serious if I were in the sheep/goat business.

And if I lived on the outskirts of Tucson and had little kids in the neighborhood, I'd be pretty rough on all coyotes, just to try to avoid repetitions of attacks.

[kraigwy]

Wolves were imported to Western Wyoming, not even the same wolves native to the state by some idiot town folk who know nothing about them.

They are destroying the elk herds, they like their little cousins, kill for fun.

I fear they will drift to the Big Horns, then the Black Hills, I see one, I'll send 'em to hell just as fast as I would a coyote. Just last week some roaming dogs ham strung one of my horses, wolves are worse, I wont allow wolves on my property.

[thallub]

Last year I eliminated over 40 coyotes and am well on my way to that number again this year. Coyotes have an adverse impact on the small game and deer population here-especially the fawns.

[GeauxTide]

They'd feel different if their pets were consumed. I look at it from the perspective that Coyotes are voracious eaters of game and birds. Every one I poke is one less to take game away from me.

[bcarver]

Vermin (noun) an animal that appears abundant and harmful to my agenda.
example- beavers in a pond I own. Things that eat turkeys or turkey eggs(coyotes,racoons,armadillos,bobcats). ACLU Lawyers. ect ect...

I shoot vermin.

[Buzzcook]

People will hunt or not hunt what they wish. If that makes you feel bad, get used to it.

[Pathfinder45]

......when I was spending a year farming in Doniphan County, Kansas, across the river from St. Joseph, MO, I was having a desperate war against rabbits that were devastating the cantalope field. I killed as many rabbits as I could but they seemed to multiply faster than I could shoot them. It was hopeless. Then one day in mid August, I saw a coyote crossing a neighbor's field. I hadn't seen any coyotes all year but over the next few days a saw perhaps four at different times. About a week later there were no more rabbits to be seen and all damage to the cantalope field came to an end. The coyotes saved my cantalopes. Evidently it was an itinerant band that hadn't been there all year 'til then. I wish they'd been there all along. In this case they deserve my praise. So coyotes are good but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. If there were so many around that I was losing livestock to their depredations I would sing a whole different tune. But 'til then I won't be shooting coyotes because they've done me a favor. You all that really do need to kill coyotes have my approval; if I were there I'd be right with you. Since I've seen the other side of the issue I thought it would be unfair to not mention it.

[dzavoina]

Good point Pathfinder! Nature has its checks and balances.

[longranger]

I'm thinking that killing coyotes has become something other than hunting for fur. I used to shoot everyone I saw,skin them out and have a nice fur.I killed one in MT in the early 80's that fetched $175.00! Now folks are out there shooting them and leaving them rot.Here in WY there is not a huge population of coytoes, they have been well controlled with shoot on sight attitudes. I have yet to find a population of coyotes worth the the time or effort to pursue during prime pelt periods in WY.Now Nevada is over run with them.When you can see 5-10 of them from the interstate you have a coyote problem,CA has a coyote problem as well.I think shooting them where heavy populations exist is fine and I would partake in such an event not the wanton sluaghter of a reduced population and leave them to rot.They do provide a valuable service but unchecked they will be destructive,it's all a matter of balance.

[jgcoastie]

Now folks are out there shooting them and leaving them rot.

If someone I know wants the hide, then I'll take the yote to them and they'll typically either bury the carcass or burn it.

If nobody wants the hide, I pile the yotes up with some brush, sprinkle some diesel fuel on it all, and set fire to it. My family does this with all of our game carcasses and remains after harvesting the meat, no need to leave a gut pile to attract more freakin coyotes around the house and barn...