Well. I can attest to my Dad's reliability. He had sightings of coyote in Cameron County 40 years ago. He has said that they were a different looking animal than what we are now seeing.
I can also attest to the new breed bringing down grown deer. I saw it personally, I wrote about it here on this forum over a year ago. Of course the new yotes in their higher numbers are having an impact on the deer herd. One would have to be an imbecile to dispute that.

There are deer there Sproul. The fact that areas are being logged now makes hunting them a bit harder. The deer like cover. The old mature forests that we were used to had virtually NO cover and the deer got pushed by the hordes of hunter CREWS as you put it. Now, if there is a logged section that humans can't penetrate, the deer seek this cover when they feel the hunting pressure. The lower numbers of hunters just exacerbates the effect. I remember in my youth that the second day of hunting was always SO much harder because of the few hunters that would go way back and push the deer. It is like that NOW on THE FIRST DAY because of fewer hunters overall, coupled with lower deer numbers because of HR, lower deer numbers because of predation etc. This is your answer. I don't know what more can be said on this issue.