One of the places where we have gotten ourselves in trouble with our past coyote management practices over the last couple decades is through too much wide spread doe shooting. I think the state did a good thing this year by reducing doe harvests back to one per day. Realizing that we need to ease up on shooting does will help alleviate some of the impact we see from coyotes.
At the current time, one of the situations where predator trapping does make sense on a short term basis are in areas where the liberal doe harvesting of the past by hunters combined with the impacts of predators have driven the additive mortality rates to such a point that deer herds may need some help recovering. In this situation, greatly limiting doe harvests and intense predator trapping for 1-3 years does have its place. However, once deer populations have recovered and stabilize, then the long term use of intense trapping efforts are not needed. Populations can be managed from that point through informed doe management and habitat enhancements.
