Ace Archer

[Makoman]

Ace: The USP claims that the PGC factors in zero for coyote impact in its' Deer Management Plan. Is that true? If so, does that mean that the PGC does not believe that the coyote is a serious deer predator?????

[Makoman]

ACE: Your failure to respond to my question makes me believe that you do not have an answer that would follow the "party line"!!!!! Seems to me, that it should be an easy yes or no???????

[ub1243]

:D
everybody knows coyotes don't impact deer herds. :rolleyes:

[Ole 20 Point]

Holy crap! We have yotes in the NE section of the country now? :please: And they kill deer too??? :eek: Who'da thunk it...:huh:

:razz:

[ACEarcher]

Makoman:
I don't know. I've been looking into it and I haven't found anything yet. This is not a yes or know question (even though it might seem to you). If I find an answer then I'll post it. Why don't you google it!:rolleyes:

[ACEarcher]

Here is a news article for you to read.

OUTDOORS: New howls of protest over the coyoteIntelligencer Journal
Lancaster New Era
Mar 23, 2010 06:30 EST

By AD CRABLE, Outdoor Trails
Media Center

Though secretive, Pennsylvania coyotes may be found in every county in the state.

Perhaps no critter in Pennsylvania has been the subject of more rumor, notoriety and speculation than the eastern coyote.

Remember the stories that persist to this day that the Pennsylvania Game Commission, or insurance companies or foresters secretly released coyotes into the state to trim the deer herd?

Now, the wily predator is being reviled anew as a key figure in the latest brouhaha over how deer are managed in the state.

There are those, several Pennsylvania game commissioners among them, who fear coyotes are making a considerable dent in the deer population, already intentionally whacked down by hunters.

The contention is that growing numbers of coyotes are taking deer, especially fawns, and will stymie attempts to let deer rebound.

The Game Commission should factor in such considerable predation in determining deer quotas, but is not, according to critics.

A recent study using DNA testing to show that coyotes in Pennsylvania and New York are mostly coyote-wolf hybrids — and thus bigger, more effective hunters than their western coyote counterparts — fuels the fire.

Reports of coyotes surfaced in the 1930s and the first documented coyote was killed in Tioga County in 1940.

By 1990, an estimated 1,810 were being trapped and shot. The take rose to 11,652 in 1998 and 23,699 in 2008.

Coyotes have been found in very Pennsylvania County, including Philadelphia. Given their secretive nature, there's no way of know just how many are in the state.

Matt Lovallo, the Game Commission's furbearer biologist, has said 50,000 to 60,000 may be a good guess with the population still growing in southwestern and southeastern parts of the state.

Ha. Try 200,000 to 250,000 says Randy Santucci, a Pittsburgh businessman who's launched his own research into the issue.

He says in talking to biologists and reading studies in such other states as West Virginia, South Carolina, Virginia, Maine and Alabama that it's becoming clear that "the predation factor of these coyotes is a big issue."

He says, for example, that West Virginia had zero reports of livestock damage from coyotes in 1991. In 2005, there were claims filed for 1,300 calves and 2,300 sheep.

He says more people are coming forward in Pennsylvania to relate stories of adult deer being killed by coyotes.

"It shows these animals are pack hunting and killing adult deer," says Santucci, whose current effort is trying to line up a presentation of his research and message to the state House and Senate game and fisheries committees.

When Santucci made a presentation before the Game Commission in January, Commissioner Tom Boop related how he had found a dead adult doe and a yearling on his farm property outside of Sunbury in January. He said he called a wildlife conservation officer who verified the deer had been killed by coyotes.

At that meeting, Boop and fellow commissioners Jay Delaney and Ralph Martone said they were worried about deer predation by coyotes and that the predators may be taking significant numbers of deer.

Boop said in an interview Monday that the coyote issue is one reason he voted to propose reduced doe hunting in parts of the state.

"I think the concern that many people have is we have drawn our deer numbers on public lands down dramatically to less than 5 deer per square mile. If there are lower numbers, and we have fawn predation, there's more impact."

But Game Commission biologists and a Penn State researcher remain adamant that coyotes are not taking an inordinate number of deer.

"I have no information to suggest that coyote predation is a problem," says Duane Diefenbach, an adjunct professor of wildlife ecology at Penn State, who performed the seminal study of fawn mortality in Pennsylvania from 2000-2002.

His research involved radio telemetry tracking of more than 200 fawns in the Quehanna Wild Area in northern-tier counties and Penns Valley near State College.

The study found that nearly 70 percent of fawns died within a year in forested settings. About 22 percent was from predation, with about two-thirds of that coming about equally between coyotes and bears.

But, and this is the important part, according to the Game Commission, about 40 percent of antlerless deer killed each year by hunters are fawns.

That's been monitored for decades. If more coyotes were killing more fawns, that 40 percent rate in the fawn-to-doe ratio would go down.

It hasn't, not in a single wildlife management unit, according to the Game Commission.

"From a management standpoint, we are achieving our management objectives of keeping most Wildlife Management Unit deer population trends stable," says Jerry Feaser, Game Commission spokesman.

"Those trends are remaining stable with hunting as a primary mortality cause, as well as predation of bears, coyotes, bobcats and vehicles — not to mention poaching."

Should there be an updated study, given the last one is almost a decade old? Officials say not likely, given the agency's dire financial straits.

Besides, says Feaser, from a management perspective, what could we do that isn't already being done? We have 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year seasons on coyotes and the bag limit is unlimited. We allow electronic calls, baiting and, as recently proposed and given preliminary approval by the Board, guiding for coyotes hunting on State Game Lands."

Still, Commissioner Boop wonders.

"It just seems logical to me if we have an increasing coyote population, which no one seems to dispute, that there's going to be increased predation."

But, like Feaser, he notes coyotes are about as open season as you can get without again placing bounties on their heads, something which turned out to be a waste of money in the West &tstr; and futile.

Santucci, the coyote activist, thinks it "perverted" to rely on a fawn mortality study so old. "There are three to four times the coyotes in the state now," he says. "Predation didn't matter in 2000-01. We still had a lot of deer."

Santucci, who is on the board of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, a group that has sued the Game Commission over its deer management, thinks coyotes could all but wipe out deer in parts of the state with low densities.

What he will recommend to legislators: Suspend antlerless deer hunting on public lands until coyote predation is studied anew.

"Show me the science that refutes what is going on in the rest of the Eastern Seaboard states," he says.



acrable@lnpnews.com

[ACEarcher]

And Another:
http://centralpaforest.blogspot.com/2010/03/coyotes-and-deer.html

[ACEarcher]

And another. I like this one!;)
http://nrahunterrights.net/Article.aspx?id=3123

[ACEarcher]

:eek:And Another:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_673827.html



I can bring up more if you like. BTW Duane Diefenbach does not work for the PGC. He is a professor for PSU. Just though I'd throw that out there.

Google really worked good! Think so?:rolleyes::eek:

[Makoman]

ACE: Good info, but the bottom line is: "coyotes are very proficient deer predators". All the articles support that theory. The studies done were completed 8 years ago when it was very rare to see or hear a coyote in the upper areas of WMU 2G. Now, they are all over the place and it is inconceivable to me that the PGC "deer management experts" (sic) are not factoring in the coyote kill when establishing antlerless allocations. It sounds like there are some PGC officials who believe they should take the coyote kill into consideration but they are not being heard. I have, reluctantly, accepted the fact that the goal of the PGC is to cater to the timber and insurance industries and not be concerned about the future of deer hunting in PA. I'm too old to be overly concerned but I do feel sorry for the youngsters. Keep up the good work. Makoman

[The Ridge]

ACE,
Can I have the CLIFF NOTE Version Please:D

[ACEarcher]

ACE: Good info, but the bottom line is: "coyotes are very proficient deer predators". All the articles support that theory.

You obviously did not read them. Dr. Diefenbach is not a PGC biologist. He is a biologist professor for PSU. He does A LOT of research into the wildlife (mainly game species) of Pa.

"Significantly, very, very few adult deer in our studies have succumbed to predation from coyotes, bears or anything else," he said. "We now know that in this state, once a deer reaches about 12 months of age, the only significant mortal dangers it faces are getting hit by a car or being harvested by a hunter."

"There is no question the coyote population has grown dramatically in the Northeast in recent decades, he said, and everyone agrees that coyotes do prey on fawns, "but our data tell us that coyote predation is not an issue in Pennsylvania."

Their is no reason to request another fawn mortality study. The data from the previous study is efficent enough.
All the answers are in front of you. Researchers PGC and not keep saying the same thing.

[Makoman]

ACE: Again, the study is 8 years old and is no longer valid in that the coyote population has increased as much as 10 fold since the study was completed.

[Ole 20 Point]

While the study may be 8 years old, that fact was addressed by Dr. Diefenbach...

Our 2000-to-2002 fawn study showed that fawn-predation rates were normal here, and I don’t have any evidence that anything has changed since then—no available data, such as changes in hunter-success rates in harvesting deer, suggest that coyote predation is increasing. If it is, then hunters should be harvesting fewer young deer, and we are not seeing that.”

Diefenbach points to information contained in recent years’ deer-hunter harvests that show fawn predation is not growing at an alarming rate. “The fawn component of the hunter harvest—typically about 40 percent of antlerless deer killed by hunters—has remained largely unchanged for many years. If fewer fawns were surviving because of increased coyote predation, they would not be available to hunters.”

One comment did note however that the predation on fawns is much higher in forested vs. agricultural regions. So that fact may be accounting for some the issues Makoman believes exists in 2G.

[Esetterman]

ace, i sent you an email, great oppertunity!