Coyotes and Deer

Coyotes and Deer
Coyote predation on fawns may demand direct attack April 17, 2015 North Carlina, Penn Live
...  after spending a lot of time and money removing a lot of coyotes, did not measure a significant increase in fawn recruitment. Thus follows the advice: If fawn recruitment is falling, reducing doe harvest is easier, cheaper and possibly more effective than spring trapping."

If you find the remains of a dead fawn in the woods this summer, could you determine what kind of predator killed it? At the 2012 Southeast Deer Study Group meeting, QDMA talked to Colter Chitwood, a Ph.D. candidate at North Carolina State University. Colter is studying the effects of coyote and bobcat predation on fawn survival rates at Fort Bragg Military Installation. During his research, Colter has become skilled at reading the signs and determining whether a fawn was killed by predators or merely scavenged after dying of other causes. If predators killed the fawn, Colter can usually determine what kind of predator is guilty based on evidence at the scene.

Research

... A new study of deer numbers across the eastern United States has found that the arrival and establishment of coyote predators has not caused the number of deer harvested by hunters to decline... Previous studies of how coyotes might be affecting deer populations have produced inconsistent results...

A video summary of the research paper: “No Region-Wide Effects on White-Tailed Deer Following Eastern Coyote Colonization”


Assessing factors affecting adult female white-tailed deer survival in the Northern Great Plains KL Moratz, BS Gullikson, ES Michel, JA Jenks… - Wildlife Research, 2019
... Predation was the main source of mortality for adult females in our study, with coyotes (Canis latrans) being the sole predator capable of depredation in our study area... almost 90% of mortalities occurring during the Post-hunt time period happened during late winter before spring green up...

White‐tailed deer population dynamics and adult female survival in the presence of a novel predator MC Chitwood, MA Lashley, JC Kilgo, CE Moorman… - The Journal of Wildlife …, 2015 North Carolina
... Recent localized declines in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) populations in the southeastern United States have been linked to increasing predation pressure from coyotes (Canis latrans), a novel predator to the region. Studies have documented coyotes as the leading cause of mortality for neonates, and 1 study documented coyotes as a mortality factor for adult females... Our data indicate that for low-density deer populations with heavy predation pressure on neonates, protecting adult females from harvest may not completely offset population declines. Coyote removal might be a necessary strategy because it could possibly increase very low fawn survival, which appears to be the most important vital rate influencing λ in our study. However, managers may have to start with reductions in adult female harvest ...

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