I do not trap or snare coyotes but hunt them. I hunt within 2 hours of Edmonton in all directions. I have only managed five so far, but four of them are adults. I am not having the success of calling them in this year. Just today I got skunked again. Then on top of that I am not seeing near as many as other years. I heard a rumour ( a taxidermist heard from a game warden) that the pups mostly died this year over some disease. It makes sense to me with what I am finding. What is the usual adult/pup ratio for you trappers. For me, I am usually around for 60% pups.
Makes alot of sense. Down here in the south a couple years ago we had that. A friend who works on a large ranch and is on the range all the time says he never saw a litter of pups all spring. Which is far from the norm for where hes at.
Parvovirus outbreaks take down the pups. A buddy of mine is at 69 coyotes this year and expect to double that by seasons end. He said most have been mature dogs.
We had a bunch of coyotes running our area in deer season and now they have almost totally disappeared. I snared for first 2 weeks in Dec and I'd say my catch was about 30 % pups ...maybe the deer hunters shot em up .
So I went out hunting an hour and a half north of Edmonton this week. I killed four coyotes, with three of them being adults. Maybe I'm just good at calling in smart educated coyotes, but I don't think so. I'm going out tomorrow east of Edmonton and will see how the mix is there if I have success. It's a new spot for me, so it will be a learning day.
Your choice of sounds to call will also have an effect on whether adults or pups respond as will population density. The parvo discussion pops up every year.With low fur prices and few trappers operating farmers and ranchers will be hoping for any disease to control the population.
The vet clinics down in these parts were treating lotsa dawgs for parvo. Good year for it, best I’ve seen actually. However talking to Reuben W, he sez he has lotsa pups over there.
I found a frozen coyote pup ( curled up in a ball like it just laid down) on a friends property after that wicked cold spell we had a couple weeks ago in the Edmonton area. Maybe that thinned them out also?
Yes; Parvo is a real threat and when the catch goes to almost straight adults, this is a the obvious suspect. In 2015 I scouted and renewed permissions in E AB . The Coyote sign/sightings in September were spectacular and I was quite excited about the potential catch. By the time I got a foothold line out in late October- the catches were not proportional to the amount of traps and effort. It took 3 weeks to cross 100, and the catch was almost all adults.
This year; the population in my area was/is very strong and I think the pup ratio was about 60% …. Very healthy. I haven’t seen this many coyotes in fields for many years. (2010? When prices started turning up?)
A different question for the coyote guys
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