The Persecuted and Unprotected Coyote

Coyotes are hunted year round, trapped, and night hunted for three months of the year. In addition, there are no limits as to how many can be killed and there is no reporting as to how many are killed. Please review this study to learn about the problems this massive slaughter of coyotes cause : Crabtree, R.2012. Letter Effects of Coyote Control

Another Study about the ineffectiveness of predator lethal control.

The VoW petition for rulemaking to help coyotes by shortening the coyote hunting season was sent to the NH Fish and Game Department at 2:30pm on January 2, 2018. Please read the petition here: coyote petition January 2018

NH Fish and Game biologists agreed to put to rulemaking closing the hunting season at the January Commission meeting but the Commissioners voted it down. They voted it down, complaining that there was no data, but they didn’t even bother to read public comments and the data that was sent to the department.

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Reasons to shorten the coyote hunting season:

1. Mating begins in January and in April there are litters of young which depend on both parents for food and training. They are not weaned until mid-June and guidance continues while the pups are growing. Young coyotes are more susceptible to becoming nuisance animals if they are not given proper guidance from adult coyotes.

2. It is inhumane to kill adults during pup rearing. Pups may die of starvation if the adults are killed.

3. Four Northeastern states have closed coyote hunting seasons. NY conducted a study in 1991 that discredited a year-round open hunting season of coyotes in upstate NY. See The Status and Impact of Eastern Coyotes in Northern New York

4. The coyote is not a food source nor is it a fur source in warmer months. Recreational killing is not an appropriate use of a wild animal. Colonel Jordan stated at the October 2017 NHFG Commission meeting that there are laws in NH against wanton waste. It is wanton waste to kill coyotes during the warmer months when the fur has no value.

5. Hunting seasons for other furbearers are the same, or nearly the same, as the trapping season of that animal. Coyotes stand out as the only furbearer that doesn’t have a closed hunting season.

6. Hunting coyotes year-round is not a good way to manage the species. It does not control the population. Scientists have discovered that coyotes, being responsive breeders, adapt to over-hunting by having larger litters.

From a recent letter to the Editor in the Keene Sentinel – “Scientists have discovered when coyotes are aggressively hunted, they adapt by having larger litters. If alpha females are killed, then beta females will breed successfully. Stressed by heavy hunting, packs will break up and individuals or pairs will strike out on their own to colonize new areas. Knowlton and Connolly determined that when this colonization happens in force, coyotes could withstand about a 70 percent kill rate annually without any effects on their numbers. A recent study in Yellowstone found that coyote numbers there have leveled off now that we’re leaving them alone.”  THE EFFECTS OF CONTROL ON COYOTE POPULATIONS