ORIGINAL: WNY Bowhunter
You gotta stop and think that coyotes are not strictly venison craving carnivores and most of their diet consists of small mammals such as woodchucks, rabbits and lots of mice and carrion that they come across. The only realistic things that I can think of that can cause a serious decrease in the deer herd over a large area to such a degree would be a disease (such as EHD or blue tongue) and the harvasting of really large numbers of does by hunters.
Woodchucks? Rabbits? What are those? I haven't seen any since I started hearing coyotes howling at night 5-6 years ago. Also used to see 30+ turkeys at a time, several different groups of them. Now I see the same group of 12 every couple weeks. And we haven't had any real bad winters the past few years. Heck were halfway through December and I haven't seen anything more than a dusting of snow so far.
Also, I would assume if there was a disease taking out large numbers of deer in NY we'd have heard about it correct?
Tim