Coyotes Everywhere!
BY Herschel Smith5 years, 9 months ago
Via Kenny and WiscoDave, this:
There aren’t many places in the U.S. where coyotes aren’t breeding pups, including Central Park in New York City, Scotten said. The canines’ native habitat was once the dry, open expanses of the western United States. But like humans, coyotes have slowly expanded their territory across the nation by quickly adapting to disturbances in their natural habitats.
Coyotes have learned to thrive in the same urban development that has caused other predator populations to decline. They can cross bridges, swim canals, and navigate sidewalks while hunting for food, Scotten said.
A coyote’s dream home, though, would be in a suburb like Bloomingdale, where densely packed developments are surrounded by farms and pastureland — a small taste of the open range prairies they used to roam.
“Now, especially in areas like Bloomingdale, the coyotes appear to be living in rural environments but coming in to urban areas to get food since its easier,” Scotten said.
Humans likely brought the first coyotes to Florida to train hunting dogs in the 1920s, but many scientists believe they now fill the role in Florida’s ecosystem that red wolves left behind. The animals help keep Florida’s rodent, raccoon and fox populations in check, but are known to prey on cattle, turkeys, chickens or unsuspecting house pets.
And humans too. Like The Alaskan says:
Lethal control works. Alaska uses aerial wolf control to manage wolf populations as well as long term hunting and trapping seasons with generous bag limits. Wolves will have dramatic impacts on moose and caribou populations if allowed to increase in numbers unchecked. Natives in western Alaska will tell you that there was never any moose in western Alaska until wolf suppression was initiated. Moose in Alaska have been expanding their range because of wolf (lethal) control. State Fish and Wildlife personnel use aircraft to control wolf populations. Abundant moose and caribou populations are the result.
Your pig problems could be managed the same way. Aerial lethal suppression coupled with an open hunting season on pigs until you achieve the numbers, in terms of managed populations, that you want.
If eradication is your goal, then lethal removal is the only option. If the State is serious, your pig problem can be solved.
Remember, countless millions of bison, packs of wolves, plains grizzles and the prairie chickens (extinct,) were removed from the great plains with single shot front-stuffers (in large part.)
The scoped AR seems IMO, to be the best platform for ground based pig control. What fun!
We’re just not killing them. If we don’t kill them because of gun laws, then they’ll kill your pets and sometimes hunt you down too. Make your choice.
On January 24, 2019 at 12:24 pm, Pat Hines said:
Coyotres have expanded there range the same way armadillos have, by crossing the bridges constructed to replace ferries that crossed major rivers. Just about every Interstate highway crosses the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and other major rivers via a bridge. The two above animals easily spread their range.
They’re all around my neighborhood, to the point we really need an organized night hunt for them.
On January 24, 2019 at 12:37 pm, Frank Clarke said:
Florida classes feral pigs as pests. There is no closed season and no bag limit. Even so, farmers from Pensacola to Homestead beg their friends with ARs to come over and collect some pork. The best you can hope for is ‘suppression’.
On January 24, 2019 at 3:19 pm, Gryphon said:
Coyotes in Virginia are doing just Fine in the Rural/Suburban Interface where I live, two (known) Packs of them go between the Subdivisions and McMansions on 5-Acre Lots and actual Working Farms (Horse farming is Work, too) and I think we are approaching the point where the Suburban Snowflakes are going to start Complaining about the sound of Gunfire at Night. They already are regularly posting “Lost Dog” signs, the Description always being of some Ankle-Biter, Rat-Dog species…
One Farm has been Sold for 10-Acre Lots, and the Neighbors have learned to Call the Sheriff’s Office when they go Shooting (whether for Fun or Hunting) so the Dispatcher knows to tell the Hysterical Snowflakes on 911 that it’s Legal for the Neighbors to be Shooting on their 300 Acres…
On January 24, 2019 at 11:45 pm, TheAlaskan said:
Put a bounty on the coyote. Let the youngsters make some money. Cheer their efforts to ‘hunt’ the coyote. Give them the tools and the training to be successful coyote hunters. Celebrate their achievements.
Coyote snipers will be valued in the not too distance future.
On January 26, 2019 at 8:09 pm, MN Steel said:
Might have to take the North Idaho approach to the wolf problem: new sponges coated in bacon grease.
Would also take care of any dogs that are loose, but in order to make an omelette…