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You can blame them for the missing cats and chickens, for trying to steal the family dog off the porch, but claiming that they’re a major cause of declining deer populations—well, that may be a stretch.
There is no doubt that coyote numbers have been on the rise in southwestern Minnesota and that the canine is about as populous in this area of the state as it has ever been. Whether asking a farmer, your local fur trader, or checking Minnesota DNR survey data, it’s the same moral, different story.
Family farmer, Willard Burns of Hanley Falls, says “They are definitely out of hand right now.”
Local fur trader Oscar Waller, of Clarkfield, commented how, “First I maybe bought one or two [coyote pelts] a year, then it was 12, then 20, then 50... the last few years I’ve bought over 400 and turned down over 100.”
According to DNR scent post data, since the early 1990s, scent station visitation rate for coyotes in designated “farmland” areas have increased by nearly 500 percent.
Yet, while farmers and hunters say they know what they see and they’ve seen enough to recognize that coyotes are a problem, DNR furbearer biologist John Erb, says, “I’m not aware of anything that suggests that there is something to be concerned about.”
Reason for concern
On a hobby-farm in rural Clarkfield, Brent and Meredith Zempel, have been forced to deal with the coyotes.
Recently the couple has witnessed the decimation of their chicken population. At one time their flock numbered 25, but ravaged by coyotes, in both evening and day-light hours, it is now down to six.
On an occasion when he was found unrestrained, their 100 pound Chesapeake, Kaiser, pursued a few of the 25-30 pound canines, and received a bight wound on his leg during a resulting fray.
In true coy coyote order, a member of the rout returned to try and lure the family pet off the front porch. Yelping and letting on as if it was hurt, the coyote had intended lead Kaiser away from the Zempel home and into the jaws of the pack lying inconspicuously in wait.
“They’d rip him to pieces,” said Meredith, who, after reading up on the subject is aware. “There would be nothing left.”
With their two children inclined to play in the yard, the Zempels have taken the precautions to brush up on their marksmanship skills with a shotgun. Meredith explained that the increasingly desperate behavior of the animals requires the measure.
“There coming out in broad daylight, that’s what is scary,” she said. “People have kids and animals out, you just don’t expect that.”
You can blame them for the missing cats and chickens, for trying to steal the family dog off the porch, but claiming that they’re a major cause of declining deer populations—well, that may be a stretch.
There is no doubt that coyote numbers have been on the rise in southwestern Minnesota and that the canine is about as populous in this area of the state as it has ever been. Whether asking a farmer, your local fur trader, or checking Minnesota DNR survey data, it’s the same moral, different story.
Family farmer, Willard Burns of Hanley Falls, says “They are definitely out of hand right now.”
Local fur trader Oscar Waller, of Clarkfield, commented how, “First I maybe bought one or two [coyote pelts] a year, then it was 12, then 20, then 50... the last few years I’ve bought over 400 and turned down over 100.”
According to DNR scent post data, since the early 1990s, scent station visitation rate for coyotes in designated “farmland” areas have increased by nearly 500 percent.
Yet, while farmers and hunters say they know what they see and they’ve seen enough to recognize that coyotes are a problem, DNR furbearer biologist John Erb, says, “I’m not aware of anything that suggests that there is something to be concerned about.”
Reason for concern
On a hobby-farm in rural Clarkfield, Brent and Meredith Zempel, have been forced to deal with the coyotes.
Recently the couple has witnessed the decimation of their chicken population. At one time their flock numbered 25, but ravaged by coyotes, in both evening and day-light hours, it is now down to six.
On an occasion when he was found unrestrained, their 100 pound Chesapeake, Kaiser, pursued a few of the 25-30 pound canines, and received a bight wound on his leg during a resulting fray.
In true coy coyote order, a member of the rout returned to try and lure the family pet off the front porch. Yelping and letting on as if it was hurt, the coyote had intended lead Kaiser away from the Zempel home and into the jaws of the pack lying inconspicuously in wait.
“They’d rip him to pieces,” said Meredith, who, after reading up on the subject is aware. “There would be nothing left.”
With their two children inclined to play in the yard, the Zempels have taken the precautions to brush up on their marksmanship skills with a shotgun. Meredith explained that the increasingly desperate behavior of the animals requires the measure.
“There coming out in broad daylight, that’s what is scary,” she said. “People have kids and animals out, you just don’t expect that.”
Hunters
Hunters are perhaps the most outspoken critics of coyotes.
Area game seekers are seeing and harvesting fewer deer in recent years. These facts, combined with the coyote population expansion and both various accounts of canine and deer predatorial interaction, makes it natural for sportsmen to put two-and-two together.
In speaking with the hunters, one receives both first-hand accounts of coyotes chasing deer across fields as well as reported discoveries of coyote dens littered with multiple deer skulls. In the latter circumstance, the same story, not always consistent with details, was recounted by a number of different individuals.
Such accounts make it no surprise to hear rural Clarkfield resident Mark Nelson’s comment that, “We have wildlife management areas for people to hunt, but I almost feel like putting up a sign: “Don’t bother going in there, the coyotes already got all the game,” he said
Deer are down
The deer numbers have definitely declined over the last few years. It’s easy to see in the number of antlerless deer permits that have been issued in Yellow Medicine County by the area DNR office out of Marshall, which bases its allowance on deer estimates.
In the hunting block in which Clarkfield is a part, 400 antlerless deer permits were released during each year between 2001 and 2005, but from 2008 through 2010 that number is down to 75 per year.
But are coyotes responsible for the decline? The data says, no.
Limited data
The DNR deer mortality study, “Survival of white-tailed deer in an intensively farmed region of Minnesota,” performed during the period of 2001 through 2004 around the southwestern Minnesota cities of Redwood Falls, Walnut Grove and Lake Benton suggest that there is a different cause that is significantly more responsible for draining down the deer count than the coyote.
The purpose the study was to figure out, what, exactly, is killing deer. To perform the analysis 77 female deer (61 adults, 16 fawns) and 39 neonates, or newborn deer, were radio collared and tracked. Vaginal transmitters, placed in does and expelled at the time of birth, permitted the tagging of neonate.
Over the four year period, in the Lake Benton area the annual survival rate of all adult deer and fawns was shown to be 77 percent. A total of 71 percent of the deaths were attributed to humans, the majority stemming from hunting, with car kills also playing a notable role.
The neonates fared better. They managed an 84 percent survival rate, which, according to the report, was high compared to past studies. Humans played much less of a factor in this instance, with 67 percent of the deaths due to predators (mainly coyote).
“We have limited data [in southwestern Minne-sota],” said wildlife research biologist and co-author of the study, Brian Haroldson.” But the data we do have suggest that survival is still high for the new born fawns and that coyotes aren’t the cause of lower or declining populations.”
The cause
If there is a hang up, it is as Haroldson said; there is limited data and additionally the study occurred during the 2001-2004 time period that had a much higher deer population.
Today, with the smaller local deer count, coyotes could conceivably be taking a much greater proportion of the fawns and neonates as the coyote population have increased and the deer population decreased.
However, when compared with more abundant information gathered on deer mortality in the northwoods, the hang-ups appear to likely be allayed.
According to furbearer biologist John Erb. adult and fawn deer populations in northern Minnesota are subject to greater predatorial durress, as they are subjected to a longer and larger list of predators that includes bears, wolves and bobcats.
Erb says that, loosely, northwoods predators take a third of fawns and gets close to half of the young deer in their second year; yet, despite this fact, recent deer harvest numbers are some of the highest on record for the region.
“We tend to like to vilify coyotes and wolves and that sort of things ... it’s not to say that coyotes don’t play some part ... but I’m a person who tends to be data driven ... and every study that has been done says that human mortality is the number one cause of deer deaths.” He also states that deer populations can sustain morality rates of 40 to close to 50 percent without decline.
Bounties of old
While Erb says “[that southwestern and northwoods] studies conclude that coyotes are not a problem at this time” it is only in terms of deer populations.
For the Zempels and like families, it’s not the deer they’re worried about, it’s their children, their farm animals and their pets.
Coyotes only began taking hold when settlers began forcing out the wolf populations in certain areas of Minnesota. Without their larger cousin keeping them at bay their population have grown exponentially. They are Minnesota’s most abundant large predator.
A varying nuisance for farmers over much of the last century, coyote bounties were offered up until 1965 when the bounty bill was vetoed by Governor Karl Rolvaag. According to the DNR, many studies proved that bounties were ineffective, often leading to the deaths of non-problem coyotes, and were consistently abused, both at a tax payer expense.
In 2004, Yellow Medicine, in tandem with a few neighboring counties, issued their own bounties up until the state caught wind and informed that it was illegal. Subsequently a bill was introduced to the legislature that would have given counties back the power to set coyote bounties. After passing the House, the bill died in the senate, and coyote bounties remain illegal to this day.
Coyotes have been a much larger problem on the western end of the country, and it is here that many studies gauging the effect of bounties and like measures were performed. The coyote, however, has always endured and the states have more or less learned to live with the canines.
Coyotes attacking humans is a rare occurrence. In California, where they exist in great abundance, the state’s Department of Fish and Game estimate that roughly one person is bitten by a coyote per year, and there has only been a dozen or so cases across the country in which a coyote has caused a human fatality. Far more people are killed by their pets, in fact.
It’s on who
All of this suggests if someone is going to intervene perceived coyotes, it won’t be the state.
DNR data suggests that coyotes, while a component, are far less a factor on deer populations than the men behind the guns. As a result, recent declines in deer permits should help lead to a resurgence in the number of deer and successes of hunters.
Should those deer numbers not increase, then the coyote debate will likely be raised again. Though the DNR is not likely to take action without data, which in this area of the state is tough to come by.
As for the Zempels, they’re on their own, too. And while the coyotes in the wings recommend caution while the youngsters are at play, they can at least take solace in the fact that coyote attacks are extremely rare and that if they do continue to come around the Zempels can always take it upon themselves to deal with them as they see fit.
After all, coyotes are an unprotected species.
