Never saw such a thing in 35 years of hunting

rlg

rlg

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Am I the only one that has noticed an evolutionary change with regard to the coyotes?

This weekend (about one hour before sunset), I was in the bush setting up some elevated feeders on land owned by a sheep farmer. I have been shooting coyotes for this guy since September because he is sick and tired of losing sheep. While I was setting up, I heard some yelping heading in my direction, so I immediately backed into some thick pines on an elevated ridge and waited for them to get closer. I was in full camouflage and the wind was just right so that they probably would not smell or hear me.

This is what I saw….. About fifty meters in front of me, I coyote in full stride comes running out of the thick bush and is chasing something (turns out is was a hare). The hare is running in a straight line from left to right in my field of vision. All of a sudden, I catch some movement far to my right along the trail that I walked in on. Two coyotes are now standing just off the trail completely motionless. :eek:The hare was being chased towards the waiting coyotes who then finished the job as the hare ran by. Once the hare was dead, the coyotes went through a two minute ritual of nipped, growling and yelping at each other, as the hare lay bloodied and dead in the snow. Then the biggest to the three picked it up in his mouth and the three of them ran into the bush and out of sight.

Darkness fell fairly quickly, so I figured that I would come back in the morning to check on my feeders and try to follow their tracks to see where they went. This morning before going to work, I tried to follow the tracks, but the 5 to 10 centimetres of snow that fell last night made it impossible to follow them beyond the point were the kill had occurred.

I have been hunting for 35 years in Quebec and Ontario. I have noticed a change in their behavior in the last 20 years. Before, the coyotes were less numerous, and when we did see them, they were usually rogue animals, rarely were they hunting and usually they were scavenging. Now when I see coyotes, they are often in groups (may I be so bold as to say “packing”), they seem to hunt more than they scavenge, and in some cases, they seem to co-ordinate their kill. What I saw this weekend is the icing on the cake. Never, by any stretch of the imagination, did I ever think I would witness such a thing. Was it just a coincidence that the two other coyotes were lying in wait while the other was in chase or was it a co-ordinated hunt? I am no biologist or scientist. I am a hiker, fisherman, camper and a hunter with 35 years experience. Therefore, there is no scientifically based research here, but rather just years and years of observation. In my opinion, coyotes have changed dramatically over the last 20 years. If fact, I would go as far as to say that they have evolved more in the last 20 years than they have in the last 2000 years.

Regards
Robert
 
They've adapted around here like wolves. They'll take turns running the deer too. They'll run them in circles, and when one gets tired the next one starts, until the deer is exhausted. Then they kill it.

Why didn't you shoot them?
 
The only time I have seen single yotes is when a young ##### was out getting food for her pups. Otherwise they would be in groups of 3 or 4
 
Very cool experience! I mean to be able to witness it, not the act it's self.
I have seen them run in pairs, one dogs the bush 10 yards in while the other walks the feild edge waiting for something to get booted out. That is no where near as coordinated as what you watched though. Scary stuff, kill them.
 
Had a calf devoured overnight last year...last check,cow and calf together...morning,skull and backbone where the calf was and stressed out cow...had to have been a bunch...
between my .204 and my Pyr I've only seen 2 on the place this yr...both runnin for their lives ;)
 
Coyotes have been observed hunting caribou in groups here in Newfoundland.

It seems the family groups are staying together longer than usual to take advantage of this efficiency when hunting larger prey.
 
My dad and I witnessed a muley doe being run by 4 or 5 coyotes. They were jumping up and biting at her rear as she ran. Her ass end was bloodied. This took place on Hwy 16, just west of Hinton, Bar F area. Pretty wild. The doe came tearing out of the bush, saw the highway, turned left, running hard along the highway, then heading back into the trees after about 300m. I always wondered if they got her. Total wolf behavior though.
 
rlg said:
Because I had no gun. I was setting up my elevated feeders with about hour of daylight left and making all kinds of noise. Who expected this kind of action?
Click to expand...

This is always my cousins excuse...
You'd think after "35 years of hunting experience..." you'd have learned ;)
 
I have watched wolves chase an elk across a frozen lake into the Inlet of the lake where 4 other wolves were waiting in the bush, we were low on fuel in the helo and couldn't stay for the kill, but it was clearly an ambush.
 
I have watched them hunt Geese in a fields in Kingston. One or two sitting in the open gettin there attention while others sneak around their flank (in the low spots) on their bellies and come up behind them.
 
They are very thick in SW ontario this fall. Everyone i talk to has the same story, too many yotes. We took three does in the controlled hunt and all three were not lactating. One fella told me that if you take out the mature yotes the younger ones will breed out of control and the population will actually increase.
 
I've seen that same behavior in the yotes in Eastern Ontario as well. They are smart animals. They have adapted and overcame most challenges that came thier way. Now enough talking. Get out there and shoot them all. :sniper:

-Jason
 
I haven't observed that sort of behavior myself, but I did get reports of people being shadowed by coyotes while riding horses. A couple of dogs I know have been attacked by groups of coyotes in the area of the last year or so.

Then critters are <definitely> developping some sort of pack hunting behavior. Doesn't help that pretty much the antire area is a no hunting zone.
 
I have seen this sort of thing as well.

I was out with the bow last Deer season I was calling, rattling and stomping when out of the woods rush 2 Coyotes one hangs back and the other goes right out in the middle of the field. I'm in my blind and they are about 60yds in front of me the one Coyote that hung back starts to circle the field while the one in the center just watches. I hear a step and I turn to look and to my surprise there are 3 more Coyotes standing just in side the tree line spaced evenly apart just sitting and waiting. Once the one Coyote made a full lap of the field they were gone back into the bush. I found this weird that they would come to the sound of two dominant bucks fighting but I guess if one gets hurt it becomes an easy meal.
 
They aren't "developing" anything. They were hunting like this on PEI in the early and mid 90's and they hunt like that in Alberta now. You just don't see much evidence of it unless you are lucky or strap on a backpack and snowshoes and follow their tracks every day for couple of winters like I did in university. That's one of the ways they hunt and it is well documented in the scientific community. Family groups don't "stay" together but they do occupy overlapping territories and occassionally do get together for a big animal hunt.

It's strange how we seem to want to convey almost mystical properties and/or higher level thinking to coyotes and wolves. They are smart animals, no doubt, and adaptable but they are just doing what they've always done. The eastern yotes are just bigger and therefor more capable of regularly taking bigger game.
 
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