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A few years ago I read Coyote America, by Dan Flores. A large portion of this book is dedicated to Wildlife Services efforts to cull the Coyote. They've been fa
by Exmoor 6y ago
A few years ago I read Coyote America, by Dan Flores. A large portion of this book is dedicated to Wildlife Services efforts to cull the Coyote. They've been fantastically unsuccessful in this effort, most likely due to behavioral quirk of the species. Coyotes can identify specific individuals by voice, and if one of those voices disappears from the nightly call it causes the females to enter estrus and breed. So if you kill a Coyote multiple more Coyotes literally spring up in their place.
- emiliobumachar 6y agoThat's intriguing, could you provide a link? If all females can just reproduce more, I would expect one would break ranks and increase her own fitness by maxing out regardless.
- blocko 6y agoI was also intriqued and put ~10min looking into it. This study[1] seems to suggest that although reproduction rates might increase modestly when the population is reduced, high immigration rates are the bigger factor. If anyone finds anything on the (voices disappearing)->(estrus) mechanism described above I'd like to see it, sounds really interesting. [1] https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jwmg.21329 https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jwm...
- quantified 6y agoCoyotes seem to do OK in urban areas too, hope these are safe from cyanide bombs...
- NicoJuicy 6y agoSo, castration ? :)