Not you shooter I'm starting to like you! My disagreements are mainly with Fred now. What do you think about this shooter? Do you think coyotes will target the young, old, weak, sick, small ....animals in a herd or would they rather take on an animal at full strength, or do they not discriminate on which prey to target?

I think coyotes are target what ever they come across when they are hungery. Their very ( opertunistic)? sorry i cant spell good as an Auburn graduate. If the come across a sick or wounded deer they eat it. If its a fawn they eat it, if they can find it! So to an extent they dont Discriminate. As to with one= a single coyote probably doesnt want to take down a large , health aniamal, but a pack might. Here we go into different places. So places have small packs/ some have large packs. The will target anything , depends on the season. Fawns are sometimes easey marks, depends on the mother. I once did a large cattle job, the ranches did some AI ? injections ?/ and had lots of calfs dropping in a few short days of each other. The rancher witness coyotes following the cows waitiing for them to give birth. They would eat the after birth and calve. The first day a shot a coyote will i was setting traps, this coyote was laying down on a terris row/ hump watching a cow about to give birth when i shot it! Coyotes are very smart aniamal! I respect them but hate them at the same time! Point is coyotes will go after what ever they learn how to kill. So times I wounder if thats heratatery or a taught or learned behavior? Does a mother coyote teach here young how to specalize own cattle calfs?

If they aren't discriminating why do they take the calves instead of the full grown cows. I'm sure they come across cows all the time? If they aren't discriminating it seems to me that a adult cow would be better for them to kill cause they would get more meat. So if a yote was in a pasture with an adult cow and a calf the results according to you should be 50-50 on to which animal they would try and kill.

They kill whatever is easiest to kill at the moment, obviously. Do you actually consider this "survival of the fittest" and that it's a good or helpful thing?

try to consider that the "natural selection" that is used here may take out the buck fawn that was going to sire 8 bucks over 160" in his lifetime, but the yotes killed him when he was 2 days old, while his cousin that will never sire anything over 115" survived because his 8 y/o mother hid him better. It's nature at it's finest, right?

Which scenario do YOU want for YOUR deer herd?

They will take down cows, IF the chance presents its self. Large/ medium size cow . Was jumped by large pack of coyotes. Cow was laying down in tall grass, coyotes attach in force, because of grass and terrain cow can get up, gets eaten alive. Its a horrable thing to see, but does happen. Also lots of times a cow has a hard time with delevery of calve so its week lays down and coyotes get it. So i guess you can say theirs< points on the board for both our ways of the arguement> i quess.

When you get locked down on the semantics of words like "selection process" or "natural discrimination" you take out the human element , that hunters want what WE want, not what the yote or his egg-headed supporters want.

I want to determine the selection process, I want to control the herd size, I want to determine the fawn recruitment level and not leave it to the coyotes.

Y'all people like to call a lot of names. And if you've read some of my previous posts or seen the pics I posted I am obviously not a yote lover. You can call it what ever you want but a yote is gonna go after what is easiest for him to kill, I don't see how anyone can argue against that. Also it is natural selection. you argue about buck fawns being killed, but guess what the more skilled, and experienced moms to a better job of preventing their fawns from being killed. Therefore only the moms with the best survival instincts, and best genetics will have there fawns survive. Therefore passing on their successful genes to their surviving offspring(remember buck get half their genes from their mother) less skilled moms loose more fawns because they aren't as good at what they do. Therefore the mother will pass on her crappy instincts if her baby doesn't get eaten.

Sounds like a pretty good description of survival of the fittest and natural selection to me. What am I missing here Vulcan

You guys calling everyone a dumb arse, egghead, etc… that disagrees with you is one of the main things that keeps this place from being any kind of real learning environment for the general AL deer hunter and mostly just a hang out for good ol’ boys posting youtube videos and talking about everything BUT deer. Its no wonder why the general discussion forum is just rolling by with pages and pages of bullchit while the forum for talking about “deer” just sits idle. Why don’t you guys try a different approach for a while? Requiring thick skin is one thing but when the belittling tone gets to this point then any real serious contributors to the conversation slowly leave. It’s why many of the people “in the know” don’t even bother posting here anymore.

People in the know like Nighthunter, Gobbler, and BhamFred leave because of people that want listen and question good common ALABAMA coyote knowledge. I think people got up set-with the fact or the point trying to be pushed from YOU that trapping does not good! You heard from top biologist when in some cases its important to trap and some its not. I agree some places dont need it and some dont. But to say trapping isnt cost effecent is a flat-out lie. YOU can make it effecent, if you want. Gets some thicker skin or stop posting!!!

How can people in the know argue that natural predation doesn't not promote survival of the fittest? And that it's simply a crap shoot or a lottery to which animal is targeted and killed. If that was the case it would be 50-50 chance that a yote faced with the decision of catching and killing a fawn vs catching and killing a health adult deer. And that it's not natural predatory instinct to prey upon the young old sick weak animals of the herd.

Because its both. I am not an expert but think its 50-50 .It depends on the place you are at . Cattle counrty coyotes , differ from north alabma hunting club and south alabama hunting club coyotes. I think we have lost sight on what is most important to 80% of the people on here. Getting more deer! I ask the question again who doesnt want MORE? Plus your saving fawns lives by trapping at the right time of year when YOU can make a difference

I think folks get bored with reading the same arguments over & over, based on specific localized studies that may or may not be sound science, and it becomes obvious that some people are arguing just for the sake of arguing. If you take offense to the so-called "name-calling" you might look into why it's occurring, or maybe not try to distract with some hypersensitive display. I might even point out that you began your mantra stating that anyone who disagrees with you may as well pound sand with their useless attempts at controlling natural selection or some such drivel, but that would put me on your whiny-assed level, huh?
Keep coyotes as pets, let them eat your fawns, whatever you might enjoy, but a 1968 study done in Washington state probably won't sway many deer hunters in Alabama about the impact of coyotes. Most here have first-hand knowledge about what happened to the deer herd OVERALL with the influx of coyotes. Have a nice day.

Simple, because it's not, avoiding predators is largely a learned behavior. It's also based on a lot of luck, because coyotes generally kill nearly EVERY fawn they can catch, usually just because they happened upon them, sometimes they eat part, but I've also seen them run them down, kill 'em and drop 'em, they didn't check to see which ones were genetically superior. You can't see that? Seriously?

You are arguing just to pass the time, I think it's a waste of time.

PFFT.

Obviously from what I can tell from you guys natural selection and survival of the fittest doesn't exist I'm Alabama or either I don't understand what it means or y'all don't. I guess if that's the case then evolution doesn't happen in bama either. It's amazing how an animal that doesn't evolve could even develop defense strategies for a introduced predator. Or did the ones that lived pass that defense strategy on to their young?

Its been made obvious to me the points I'm arguing don't exist in Alabama , and must only exist every where else in the world there is a predator prey relationship. Everyone complains that people argue too much on he said she said but when I present sound scientifically backed information the tides are turned, and its "well on my property..." I'm sorry if I offended anyone with out name calling. I don't feel any hatred towards any of y'all, and it may sound crazy to y'all but I argue with my friends just like this, and if alcohols involved it usually turns into a bloody lip haha. I'm going to agree to disagree and if any of y'all can prove any of my points wrong with a good scholarly article please pm it to me cause I'm always up for furthering my knowledge hell I prob read 5 papers and over 40 pages just doing research for this thread and 90% of what I said came directly from the studies, it shocks me that all those studies are wrong according to our experts.

I want to especially let bhamfred know that I thought we were just having a educating convo no hard feelings. And I'd really like to learn more about your research on this subject since you disagree with all the studies I read.

This is an argument for another time but to answer your question. No I don't want more deer. I want bigger stronger healthier deer.

I understand what your saying. I want both thought. Let me explain that statement. I am usually in 2 or 3 different hunting clubs every year. In jackson county my coyote problems are different thatn in central alabama. So basicly i admit to wanting 2 differnt things. In another spot in ST.clair county were i hunt deer density is extremely low, their for my main concern is taking out coyotes and saving as many fawns as possible . I want both more deer and stronger healthier deer! I think by an over all trapping, summer time food plots, feeding pellets, and by ONLY shooting 4 year old bucks i can accomplish my goals. I didnt say habitat improvement because , i cant do that. Im in multiple clubs and other smaller pieces of owned and leased lands so every piece of ground is different as far as coyote controll.

I hear ya my brother things are different at every location.

Oh, nobody is debating whether natural selection or survival of the fittest exist, they just don't happen to apply to every circumstance, and they aren't neccessarily a good thing all the time. And just because a study is based on scientific deduction doesn't mean that the assumptions made are correct for other situations.

But I do recognize that some folks just enjoy arguing.