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Old October 4, 2012, 11:08 PM   #1
mdd
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my coyote jihad

Central Kansas was no different than much of the country this past summer. We suffered through a miserable drought and scorching temperatures. This obviously put quite a strain on the food supply for our abundant coyote population which in turn made them take risks I have never before seen them take. Like many of us, I live in the sticks and am surrounded by open area.

One evening back in august my little mini Aussie was outside romping like every evening. Chasing cats, barking at the calves, etc. She was right outside a window when i heard her squall and yelp like never before. I knew immediately she got ambushed and was out the door with my 45 in a flash.

I assumed whatever had her was either killing her or had finished the job and was carrying her off. As soon as I cleared my porch I sent two rounds into my shelter belt to get the attacker's attention and hopefully get it to drop Maggie if that was the case. As I rounded the corner I saw a coyote loping back to the shelter belt. I had to wait for a clear line of fire before unloading the magazine but none of my rounds connected.

I saw Maggie laying in a heap and ran over to her. Knowing how dogs or coyotes attack each other, I assumed the trauma would be to her neck area. I was definitely correct as I found out when i assessed her condition. At first I thought she was dead but luckily she wasn't. I did the best one handed log roll I could manage and used my left arm as a spine board to keep her neck stabilized as best as possible and made tracks back inside.

The blood started pouring out of her wounds as soon as I picked her up. By the time i got back inside, both my hands were covered and it was dripping off of us both. I laid her on her favorite blanket and folded it in such a way as to stabilize her neck then used the rest to tightly cover her up. I wanted to keep her as warm as possible to hopefully slow the onset of shock.

Into the pickup we went and the old cummins diesel spared no dinosaur juice getting to the veterinarian. We were rolling coal the whole way. A few times during the thirty five mile trip I thought Maggie had died but a sternal rub would reveal some signs of life so we pressed on.

Upon arrival at the veterinary clinic, the prognosis was no bueno. The vet did an excellent job but we both knew she probably wouldn't live through the night. Regardless, he cleaned and dressed the wounds (left them open to drain) and started an I.V. with pain meds so she could be comfortable. He took some X-rays of her neck and showed me the damage. He told me if she made it through, she may be paralyzed on one side because it looked like she had a fracture in what would be the equivalent of the c2 vertebrae.

By this time the pain meds were taking effect and she was relaxed so we placed her in a kennel and i went home feeling quite powerless to help my best friend. The vet assured me he would call in the morning and let me know how she was.

When the phone rang the next morning I fully expected to have to make a return trip to bring her home and bury her but she made it through the night! It was two days before she ate or drank anything and by day five she could sort of prop herself up on her right front leg. At that point the vet said I could bring her home if i felt comfortable with taking care of her.

It was about two weeks before she was even strong enough to hold herself up to go potty and about three weeks before she could get around a little on her own. Two months later she is doing better than I ever could have hoped and can jump in the pickup to go along with me again.

Why is this in "the hunt" forum you may be wondering. Because I have taken it upon myself to kill every coyote I see. I have been calling for a few years now and can do reasonably well in bringing them to me. Also I have stopped passing up chance opportunities as I go about my day to day work around the farm. I am going to post pictures of the coyotes I remove from the gene pool as I can. These photos may be graphic so I am giving fair warning now. The first few pictures will be of Maggie so you can see the story a bit. Here goes.
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Last edited by Art Eatman; October 5, 2012 at 09:28 AM. Reason: The general deal is to start a new paragraph for a new thought sequence. :-) Readability
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Old October 4, 2012, 11:20 PM   #2
mdd
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This was Maggie before:








This was Maggie at the vet's office:








Obviously she should not have been outside unsupervised. That part is perfectly clear to me and I do not need further assistance deciphering that bit of wisdom.

Luckily she is doing well and here is a more recent photo of her:


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Old October 4, 2012, 11:38 PM   #3
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As for the coyotes i have encountered since then, I cannot say the same. The first one I saw was while she was still in the vet's care. I can't post that photo because my hand.
is in the photo telling the coyote i think he is number one if you get my drift. He caught a 40 grain vmax in his exit portal as he ran away. I finished him off with my LCP.
The second one i ran down in the middle of a 500 acre field and beat to death with a shovel. Let me be perfectly clear when i say that Kansas has no limits on coyotes. I can use any manner I choose to dispatch them with the exception of artificial light or night vision. Beyond that to quote my game warden, "I don't care if you a slingshot, a rocket launcher, or anything in between. Just get out there and kill some coyotes!"




Here's number three. He just went down today. He was about 200 yards away on the run away from me. He ran straight away which made my job easier. Not to mention a 223 is more convenient than a spade. He was kind of a pretty one...lot prettier dead as far as I'm concerned.







That's where I'm at so far. Its fall harvest time here and I'm greatly looking forward to when the soybeans are cut and the fields are opened up again. Saw a lot of them last year mousing on the bare soybean ground in the early mornings. There will be more photos to folfollow as they become available. This is gonna be fun. Also, Maggie watched me shoot the last one today and seemed quite interested....almost as though she wished she had thumbs to manipulate the trigger and bolt herself.
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Old October 4, 2012, 11:47 PM   #4
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The second one i ran down in the middle of a 500 acre field and beat to death with a shovel.
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Old October 5, 2012, 12:07 AM   #5
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Shoot them all.
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Old October 5, 2012, 06:46 AM   #6
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Dang man, sorry to hear about your dog. Glad she's doing better though.

Good work with the shovel, sometimes you just got to get nasty and use what is at hand.

These dang trash dogs are running all over the place. Kill every one you see. I got two last Friday evening myself.

Oh and could you change it from jihad to maybe "war" or "crusade" or "mission" or "wet ops". Thanks, just not real big on using anything related to islam in the vernacular.

Last edited by Saltydog235; October 5, 2012 at 06:52 AM.
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Old October 5, 2012, 07:44 AM   #7
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Coyotes kill all the fawns in the spring. Every one of them needs to be killed.

We now have wolves on our hunting land. They've gotten rid of the coyotes and now we can hunt wolves (as if we couldn't before "secretly"). Last year we had a cougar on the land. Maybe he'll get rid of the wolves.

And this is central Wisconsin!
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Old October 5, 2012, 08:04 AM   #8
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MDD, what can I say, hope Maggie get's to her usual self.
What kind of tag would one have to purchase to hunt with you for coyotes? I live in Mo. but I'd like to kill some Kansas yotes.
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Old October 5, 2012, 09:30 AM   #9
Art Eatman
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No insult intended by my editing in doing the paragraph thing. Trying to make a worthwhile story more readable.
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Old October 5, 2012, 10:00 AM   #10
mdd
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None taken Art. I appreciate the help. I posted all of this from my phone.
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Old October 5, 2012, 10:38 AM   #11
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I sure do hope that Maggie returns to full health, she sure does have one heck of an owner. And props to you for your dedication to the coyote removal.... While you might call it a "jihad", A Vendetta might be a better term

Whatever you call it.... Good luck and keep it up!

Sent from my HTC One X
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Old October 5, 2012, 10:43 AM   #12
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Quote:
Why is this in "the hunt" forum you may be wondering. Because I have taken it upon myself to kill every coyote I see.
Exactly what a good doggie-dad should do. Glad your pup is doing better, about halfway through your original post I started getting pretty misty

I take no joy in killing anything, but if anything ever did that to my dog - I would be waging open war as well

Happy Hunting!
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Old October 5, 2012, 12:45 PM   #13
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Figured out that I can crop and edit photos on my phone. So here's the first one that I shot right after Maggie got hurt sans the one finger salute in the original photo. Was not a full grown coyote but as i said, no opportunities are passed over. There was no mercy shown to my little buddy and none will be shown in return. I know, I know, just nature being nature. Well living out in the country and doing what i do for a living I am a part of nature as well. The difference is this little piece of nature has opposable thumbs and an arsenal.



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Old October 5, 2012, 05:06 PM   #14
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Burn em when you can. Since I killed a total of four in the yard no more then 20yds. from the house the neighbor and I have had all out war on them for the last couple years.

If you can find the dens, you can make a dent in them.
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Old October 5, 2012, 08:24 PM   #15
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Funny how all this goes. I live in a sparsely-settled desert area. There's not a lot of anything down here--except bugs. No ranching, not many folks with little kids.

So, yeah, we have coyotes around. It seems to be close enough to what I'd call a reasonable balance that the occasional calling session keeps the numbers down in adequate fashion. I figure that they compete with me for the blue quail. Gotta leave a few for entertainment value, listening to their songs at night.
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Old October 5, 2012, 08:59 PM   #16
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Normally I would say that is a fair statement for this area as well. Maybe the numbers aren't as skewed this year as it seems. They sure seem to be thicker than I ever remember though. I plan to take advantage of their more aggressive behavior towards food this fall as best I can with my calls...otherwise calving season in early 2013 is going to be pretty rough and expensive for me.
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Old October 5, 2012, 09:32 PM   #17
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I have to ask, if the coyote(s) did not attacked your dog, would you feel the same way?
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Old October 5, 2012, 09:46 PM   #18
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I have to admit that i'm on the fence with this. on the one hand, I can truly understand what you've been through. I know if a wild animal like a wolf or coyote attacked and maimed and/or killed my dog I would be furious and I would definitely try to keep my property safe from future attacks. on the other hand, I don't know if I could kill coyotes indiscriminately. I guess I only say this because I live in the city and thus haven't had this experience personally.

my father in-law is a dairy farmer and he has to routinely put down racoons because they destroy his corn crop. this is clearly a case of much needed pest control. I dunno. Killing one coyote is one thing but decimating as much of a single species as possible seems like overkill. couldn't you just build a pen for your dog so that wild animals can't get to her? I know i'll probably get flack for my comment but just wanted to offer my 2 cents
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Old October 5, 2012, 09:51 PM   #19
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mdd,

First thing I want to say is, I'm glad to see Maggie is doing well.
I hope Maggie has a full recovery and bounces back to her old self.

Second thing I want to say is I sure can relate to your situation.
I have a small house dog that wants to be with me all the time. He loves going outside with me especially when I go chore and I know how I would feel if I was in your shoes.

I want to thank you for reminding me how fast things can happen.
I will make it a point to be armed every time Spike and I go oustside, I'll also keep a much closer watch on him.

I believe you are correct on how thick the coyotes are, they sure are thick around this part of the country this year.
I had a neighbor call me the other day who knows I like to kill coyotes, he wanted me to come up to his place because he had five get pretty close to him while he was out in his orchard.

I've hunted coyotes with a vengeance for years and will continue to do so.
Keep up the good work, kill everyone of them you see.

Best Regards
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Old October 5, 2012, 11:29 PM   #20
mdd
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Twins: to an extent, yes. I have always shot coyotes when i saw them. Sometimes I would let pups go just because they were pups. I hunted them in the past because they can and do kill my baby calves. It was a risk of doing business but i tried to do my part to mitigate that risk. The fact that one invaded my personal space and tried to kill my best friend not ten feet from my house has only served to harden my resolve against them. If i see one now and it lives, its because I missed. Not because I didn't shoot.

Gaseousclay: I agree that it may be the detachment of living in the city. Coyotes are vermin here. You would not spare a rat or mouse if you found it in your home would you? If you happened upon a nest of brown recluse spiders would you only kill one? No, you would try your best to kill all of them before they hurt you or a family member. Much like you wouldnt spare the vermin you encounter, I don't feel inclined to spare any coyotes I encounter.

Bob, thanks for the kind words. Maggie is already doing so much better than i could have hoped for. I hope something like this never happens to Spike. I'll keep posting pictures as i kill these coyotes unless there is disapproval and I am asked to stop. I have some 3" mag 00 buckshot I'm looking forward to trying out. I found out some time ago that a scoped rifle isn't much good when they break out of the brush thirty feet from you and close the gap fast. Its a rush seeing things like that. I am looking forward to finding out just how far inside out I can turn one with the buckshot at 25 ft or so.
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Old October 6, 2012, 08:19 AM   #21
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Funny how things work out: Just this morning I ran across an article in the LA Times about wild animals in cities. More bears and cougars are being seen than in the past, for instance.

As for coyotes, the collated results from some 500 radio-collared coyotes in cities such as LA and Chicago show that they do well, with ample food. The kicker is that if they are killed out in an area of a city, it is only a matter of weeks before more coyotes move in and start families.

As was said decades ago, all that will be left after a nuclear holocaust will be cockroaches and coyotes.
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Old October 6, 2012, 09:37 AM   #22
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Quote:
couldn't you just build a pen for your dog so that wild animals can't get to her?
Tried that with my daughter to keep her from dating animals. Needless to say the neighbors and ex didn't take kindly to this.
Quote:
I know i'll probably get flack for my comment
Yep, your right!! Take away the dogs freedom, make it burden for the owner because of an over populated varmint! Why to you think there is no closed season, no need for a license? Kinda like moving cattle because of the flies!
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Old October 6, 2012, 12:05 PM   #23
"JJ"
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MDD I am grateful that Maggie has made the recovery she has and I am sure she is grateful for you!
She is blessed to have such a loyal "best friend"!

gaseousclay I won't give you any flack for your comments as I would guess you just haven't had much experience with coyotes. So I am going to throw out some info on them.

They are the ultimate killing machine!
They can run at speeds close to 40 mph for miles.
They can pinpoint a mouse's location from from just a squeak from almost 600 yards!
They analyze over 3 BILLION PPM scent particles each time they inhale and can detect the presence of a scent from just 2 PPM!
They can leap a 6 foot privacy fence.
They are routinely trapped and removed from fenced game reserves with high fences!
They can survive natural events that effect numbers of other species!
They have killed animals just to eat the nutritious entrails leaving the rest of the animal to go kill another.

They are efficient animals, adapting to THEIR world as WE change it. Unfortunately we have created an environment that is in their favor.
They are efficient in that they will make a choice to take an animal that requires the least amount of energy to catch over an elusive animal every time! Don't get me wrong, they kill plenty of wild animals! But while our pets still have the natural ability to detect the presence of the coyote, they aren't bread to register every animal encounter as a threat on their life. Therefore, our pets are like a fast food drive thru for them.
Yes, coyotes have to eat. They are a vital part of our ecosystem! But development and expansion has skewed the things drastically in their favor.
In my area they have no enemy other then the few humans who hunt them. They can have 5-12 pups in a litter and once dispersed, a young coyote can travel over 100 miles to find it's own territory! They literally swarm an area! Because of this, in places on the east coast where they had never seen or dealt with the canis latrans, they are now wide spread. They can wreak havoc on the native animals before they have a chance to adapt themselves!

I have a great bit of respect for this cunning creature God created! But I also believe they need controlled. We CAN NOT eliminate the species by calling, hunting or shooting every coyote we encounter. Studies have show the coyote could handle 60% of the annual population being eliminated!
If we don't keep them in check nature will. Nature does it with diseases. When the coyote population gets infected they spread the diseases (rabies, mange, heart worms and some say lyme disease) to other species. While it could be argued that all the species effected needed a population check. This route is a VERY cruel one!
The population boom we have witnessed since WE eliminated the wolf allowed the coyote to become the top predator in North America. This has greatly reduced other species such as red fox and prey species. Some upland game birds have all but been removed from the wild in some ares.
But, as these pictures show, they effect many other species!

coyote with a fawn


coyote with a turkey


a nice whitetail eventually hamstrung by coyotes


while this little guy may have gotten in a lick or two I am sure it did not end well


possibly like this one


and then fluffy never had a chance


Their existence and population effect ALL other species.
They have every right to be here! But so do the other species.
We have to right the balance!
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Old October 6, 2012, 12:23 PM   #24
"JJ"
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Here is another game cam pic of two coyotes eating a trophy whitetail while it is still alive. There was a series of pictures that circulated online where they slowly take the deer down. The pictures run from around 10pm to day light the next morning.
It is assumed that, to capture pics of trophy deer, the owner placed some type of nutrient rich supplement as an attractant that the now exhausted deer desperately needed causing it to meet its demise in the view of the camera. There are several pics of the deer, in between the attacks, with its head down to the ground.



The coyotes appeared to have eaten the entrails and left the rest.


So I post all of this to simply say that the canis latrans is not looking for any sympathy nor does it deserve it! It will take what it needs and then some! Sometimes what it needs is an important part of our life!
Sometimes a shot here and there will make OUR yard a bit less inviting causing them to adapt and find another source of food!
Sometimes they need more of a deterrent!

MDD, I want to let you know I am delivering deterrents 55 grains at a time here in Northeast Texas!
Good luck with your endeavour sir!!
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Old October 6, 2012, 03:09 PM   #25
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JJ,
Is the black/white photo showing a coyote carrying a cat? If it is, then I'm all for luring/keeping a coyote in my neighborhood. There's a "cat lady" one block away that doesn't personally own any cats but put out cat food for the stray cats (I've counted 14 so far and multiplying). They seemed drawn to the mulch in my yard (hate cleaning up their poo). Since I can't kill them myself (within city limits), need help from mother nature. I have the same feeling about the stray cats as MDD has about coyotes.
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