ORIGINAL: DougE
We haven't had any more of a predator explosion is Pa than any other state has had.That would mean every game agency in the country is out stocking them which is highly unlikely.I wouldn't call it an explosion either.Back in 1980,my nieighbor killed two coyotes on the first drive of doe season that year.We saw a few here and thereafter that but the sign and sightings hasn't increased that much.They're out there but we still only kill one or two a year at most during deer and bear season.This year we killed one in bear season and the last two years we didn't kill any.I think they've been steadily increasing over the past 30 years or so but I don't see anything close to an explosion.How did they get in every other state?
Every state in the Northeast has seen a expansion of coyote populations in the past 60 years. My father saw it begin in the late50's in Vermont and saw more and more sign until he stopped hunting there in the very early 80's. Our family continued to hunt in MA every year, and some odds years in NY and PA all the while seeing the gradual increase in sign and animals in all states. None of this is from stocking. The Yote simply filled a nitch that was left by the extinction of the eastern wolfafter the reforestation of the Northeast.To say a few pens of yotes released by PA and Maine game officails 20-30 years ago is responsible for the coyote population increase of all Northeast and Mid atlantic states is crazy.
Animals adapt and expand into changing envoronments. The whole, "we never saw them in the 60's so they must have been stocked" argument dosn't hold. In my state of MA, you never saw moosein this state 40 years ago. A black bear was an exptreme rarityat that time. Both are a fairly common sight now.They simply repopulated the area by a combination of protection and return of viable habitat.