I won't mention names or any specific info to identify the school.
But, there was a study, not long ago, conducted on a military installation in Alabama.
This concluded that 70% of our newborn fawns were killed by coyotes.
I had some questions that went unanswered.
First of all, there was 11 pregnant female whitetails abducted by a group of college students who implanted a GPS tracker in the fetus. Then they tracked the births and found 7 of them dead, with coyotes eating 6 of the carcasses.
They then proclaimed that 70% of fawns are being killed by coyotes.
My questions were,:
1. How many was stillborn due to the trauma of being abducted and molested by a gang of graduate students?
2. How do we determine the fawns we're killed by coyotes? I mean coyotes are scavengers, they're happy to eat a dead carcass anytime they find one.
3. What evidence was used to determine how the fawns died?
I spend most of my time in the woods and on the farm. I don't find evidence that coyotes are killing deer, not in any great number.
I'm not stupid, I know the Coyote is a predator, but he's also a scavenger, very eager to partake of any dead animal he finds.
So, I say all this, to say that the elusive deer survey was just as much bullschit as this bogus coyote predation study.

I was at our hunting club when we had the snow and super cold weather this past winter. I got up the morning after the snow and rode down the main road looking for hog tracks. I noticed something interesting while doing so. The first 16 deer tracks I crossed ALL had coyotes tracks trailing them. I doubt the deer were trailing the coyotes.

We keep an observation log at our club. The first full season of hunting indicated that we had 4 fawns for every 10 doe. After that season we trapped and shot 53 coyotes off of our 4,000 acres. The next season our ratio increased to 8.4 fawns per 10 doe.

I've managed three commercial hunting lodges.
Observation logs tell me more about hunters, than about deer.

1. there is almost no trauma associated with implants, not a factor in still born fawns. In my experience ( a lot) very few fawns are still born. Some don't survive for long. I have seen yotes kill EVERY DAMN FAWN on a high fence place of 500 acres. ZERO fawn survival to four weeks. ZERO.

A pen vs open range.
Very different.
I roam around nearly 500 acres (free range) every damn day.
Including several acres of cattle range, with newborn calves in the fall.
I rarely ever see evidence of a Coyote kill.

I could see that happening in certain areas. Years ago I hunted Bankhead. On the first visit I heard a pack of coyotes start howling near night fall. Just surprised me someone had not killed them out. Of course their deer numbers were low. Let the population go for a few years on a tract of land you will find out quick what wild dogs and coyotes will do. I have never seen coyotes on a tract of land like I have the last five years. Seems like on the certain large tract it is like op said, see a deer track you will see a coyote track right behind it. Never seen it like that before. At some point when the predators preferred food choice runs out something else has to take their place. If deer are all that is left deer numbers will plummet. They got to eat!

I have seen numerous signs of fawn kills by coyotes and bears. If you’re not count yourself lucky. I have also personally watched two coyotes chasing a fawn during bow season.

Like I said, coyotes are predators. I know they kill "some" deer and I'm certain they have killed "some" calves. My issue is the 70% claim. No way on earth that is anywhere close to accurate.

Never got a survey. Got my first hunting license in 1980.

We average 4 fawns to 6-8 does at the house. I have one doe that keeps her fawns within 100 yds of the house most of the time. The other does very rarely have fawns.

I would agree that it's a leap to make such a projection from just 11 subjects; their conclusions could not have been statistically significant.

But the survey got back around 3000; that was enough to be statistically significant within the standard error. It usually ran less than 4% for the state, but would be a much higher number when looking at it per county. It's a lot like Yahoo research - we just need more subjects.

GC would give them much better data for each county if everyone would just report their deer. The thing that bothered me was that so many of us knew they would have reporting issues, and the dcnr brass wouldn't believe it. He does now.

Eventually, GC will be accepted and produce good numbers. But I'm afraid that's gonna take decades.

I would love to know how many fawns coyotes take each year. Outback, like you, I know they take some. I would guess that habitat would have a lot to do with it. Poor fawning habitat would lead to more fawn deaths. Fawns need a place to hide, without it they're doomed.

I agree they are different in lack of as much ground cover.

I prolly found 3-4 fresh killed half eaten fawns that year. We did not see a fawn at the start of fall, not a one thru winter. Killed every damn one of them. Unbelieveable.

I trapped and shot several yotes that fall and winter, including one huge male. We saw fawns the next summer/fall like normal.

I believe fawn recruitment is actually one thing that's pretty accurately estimated from hunter observation logs......

We have a 5400 acre lease. I am on it a LOT. It is infested with coyotes. One guy started trapping last summer. He caught over 40 coyotes and 5 bobcats. He sent pictures as they were caught so it was hard to throw the BS flag. We had a noticeable increase in fawns this past fall. That being said during turkey season they are right back. I believe it's the timing of when your does are fawning and when you remove your "resident yotes".

#coyotelivesdon'tmatter#

#coyotelivesdon'tmatter#....

If you are so deadset against coyotes having an impact on your deer herd, run your own experiment. Do camera surveys this year heavily and set a baseline for fawn recruitment on your property. During the offseason remove as many coyotes as you can and then do the same camera survey and see if fawn recruitment changes. I am betting a pretty penny that your fawn recruitment will tremendously improve just by removing x amount of coyotes. Don't take our word for it though, try it.

Because coyotes are so quick to reproduce or move to fill a vacuum, it is probably best to do your trapping no earlier than 45 days prior to fawn drop. That way the bastages don't have time to repopulate your area. And while shooting yotes may be satisfying, a bunch of traps will cover more area, and will be on the job 24/7. If you have never used traps, it is best to get some training from an old hand.

I have. And it's nowhere near 70%.
I might believe 30%.
One thing working in our favor, around here, we have no hog problem.
I could see where the fawn mortality rate could be much higher in areas with a significant Coyote and hog population. Hogs are probably worse predators than bobcats and coyotes combined.

I am pretty sure that around Montgomery County that the coyotes kill at least 30-40% of the fawns as a minimum.