Sometimes I just get Ill when I read these posts about low deer populations and blaming the DEC.

Butch - I know she's your sister - but don't beleive it all dude.

Some of it is kind of true. There are more coyotes than there were 20 years ago - and they will eat deer, even healthy ones. But, a family group of 5 coyotes makes ALOT of noise, and in a diverse habitat - should be a welcome addition to our environment. But I like having coyotes around.

As for Coydogs - I've yet to see one. If and when they do occur, they are a sterile cross-breed, like a mule is.The cannot reproduce, also as someone already stated, they would be more likely eaten by other coyotes than accepted in amongst wild coyote populations.

From what I remember from an older post about your sister's property - It sounds like its in a good hunting area - with decent deer populations. Some people just get freaked over coyotes though- I still don' know exactly why.

FH

Me too! This is all just more unsubstantiated bs. Just people inventing stories to explain what they see or think they see and not having a shred of evidence or knowledge to back it up. I put it in the same category, with big foot, mountain lions, space aliens, ogopogo, champ, the boogie monster, and on and on... Fortunately, most people still have confidence in traditional mainstream sources of information, i.e. government, mainstream news media, universities etc and simply laugh at the stories created and perpetuatedby the good ole boys.

I have not seen a coydog in NY in quite awhile. I think it was in the early 90's which would have been about the time people in my area really started talking about coyotes moving into the area. You would see the occational one before that but it started becoming quite common to see them at about that time. A friend of mine had a large dairy farm and on the backside of the property they had a pit they would dump all their dead livestock in and would burry it. We would see coydogs and strays back there almost everytime we went back there. We would take the rifles back and sit in his tree stand and pop them as they came in. But since that first couple years I haven't seen any coydogs just coyotes. This all makes sense to me though - nothing really seems out of the ordinary. I think everyone needs to stop worying anbout how coyotes got here and just accept that they are here and they are not going any where soon.

I have been listening to this crap all my life since the 1950's about coydogs and how there over running the woods and all, please rwead below.
When biologists talk about a “coydog,” they’re not referring to someone’s shy, flirtatious pet. They are talking about a hybrid between a wild coyote and a domestic dog.

This bonding doesn’t occur often. In fact, it is probably a rarer occurrence now than when coyotes first began to migrate to the eastern U.S. Coyotes prefer coyotes, and as the population expands they are more prone to mate with their own kind.

The coydog is almost always the result of a female coyote mating with a male dog. The reason for this is that both the male and female coyote must be in estrus to mate. Male dogs however have no estrus and are always primed. So in the grand scheme of things it is much more likely that a male dog would happen upon a receptive coyote when she was in estrus than a male coyote, in estrus, should happen upon a female dog that happened to be in estrus also.

While the coydog is fertile, many things in nature work against its proliferation. Hope Ryden discusses these factors in her book God’s Dog. According to Ryden, the union is unlikely in the first place because the female coyote is very selective when it comes to choosing a mate. Unlike with domestic dogs, in the coyote’s world, the male plays a large part in the rearing of the young, so the coyote is looking for a stay-at-home dad — definitely not canis domesticus.

Ryden notes that even if a litter of coydogs makes it to breeding age there are more barriers. The coydogs inherit the coyote’s annual estrus pattern with one notable derivation. The male and female coydog comes into estrus in the fall, three to four months before the estrus cycle of wild coyotes. The only viable mates are either domestic dogs or other coydogs so once again, pickings are slim.

Then, according to Ryden, Ma Nature throws in a kicker. Any litter born to a coydog would be born in the dead of winter, lessening the chance of survival. Add to that the fact that the male coydog takes after his daddy — no child-rearing skills — and you can quickly see that coydogs are not going to be overrunning the countryside.

The coyote’s ability to intermingle gene pools has caused difficulties in other canine families, however. Coyotes can also create viable offspring by crossbreeding with wolves. When there is a healthy wolf population there is no problem. If a wolf invites a coyote to dinner, the coyote is usually the dinner.

However, in the southeastern U.S. the population of red wolves was quickly dwindling just as the population of coyotes was steadily increasing. This led to more frequent hybridization, putting a strain on the red wolf gene pool.

Some have lobbied that the red wolf is actually a cross between the gray wolf and the coyote. While hybridization has certainly occurred, the prevailing theory today is that red wolves are a separate species. There are fossilized remains of red wolves in the Southeast that date back 700,000 years.

Coyotes have been a bane to U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s efforts to reintroduce red wolves in North Carolina. Predation of wolf pups by coyotes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a small part of the failure of that effort.

In eastern North Carolina, where the red wolf was successfully reintroduced at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, the problem continues to be hybridization with coyotes. New protocol appears to be reducing the threat of hybridization at ARNWR. Currently there are 100 or so red wolves ranging in the wilds of northeastern North Carolina.

Some good posts guys.

Thanks Farm Hunter.... I just hope I didn't stir up a hornets nest though. [:-]

I was just talking to my sister about upstate NY coyotes and what the farmers and horse owners feel about them. I didn't know all the facts about the "coydog" but I have heard people talk about them.

My sisters farm in is the northeast quadrant of "7M" and is a beautiful place with rolling hills and woods. My brother-in-law told me I can come up anytime I want to bowhunt on the farm up in the back woods, but at $110 bucks a pop for licenses, I'd have to really weigh the cost of it all.

Butch A.

I accept they are here to stay, but I am still worried about them. I dont' want to see them multiplying at the rate they have been over the last 20 years. I dont' know why some of you find it so hard to believe that there are an overabundance of them in some areas as compared to years ago.


I dont' see how stating there is an overpopulation of coyotes in comparison to years past coorelates to mountain lion or bigfoot sightings. Are you saying there is no difference in coyote numbers now as compared to 10 or 20 years ago?

No, increases in coyote population is not what I was referring to at all. Even the DEC will verify that there are more now than 10 or 20 years ago. What I was talking about is the unsubstantiated bs that was posted. Here are a few statements and I do put them in the "big foot" "conspriacy theory" category just like a lot of other people do...

Quote:

...but coydogs (coyote/domestic dog crosses) are a big, huge problem.

I put this kind of stuff in the same category with big foot etc because it is exactly the same type of thinking that continues to perpetuate the myths. The myth in the case above is that coydogs are everywhere and the DEC released the coyotes to control the deer. No proof, no evidence yet people will believe it just like they believe big foot stories and space alien abductions.

Yes, I also agree that there are alot of coyotes. My point is that there aremany factors that have to do with low deer populations. It just bugs me that so many just point at the coyote. Don't we as hunters have anything to do with it? Don't we kill deer? Don't we kill many adult does each year. The DEC's point of deer management permitswasto lower the deer populations and thats what it did. Sure, coyotes kill deer too, but so do we! You all had fun blasting many does in the past several years, so what do you think is going to happen? A lower deer population! I shoot does myself, knowing that when I kill one I am actually taking three deer out of next years herd. In my area I know 15 guys that shoot one or more does each during the season. Assuming most does have two fawns, thats over 45 deer taken out of next years herd. A few years ago alot of guys were taking three does each, including myself. During the winter of 2003 I found 37 winter killed deer and during 2004 I found 17. Also,I have trapped coyotes for 10 years and I have never caught one that looked like it was part domestic dog.