TIME TO THIN THE PACK An alert coyote. (TOM KOERNER/USFWS)
Given their game-, livestock- and pet-killing ways, booming numbers, spring’s prime time to hunt coyotes. STORY BY JIM DICKSON
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oyotes are most prone to prey on pets and livestock in the spring because this is when they are having to feed their pups. They breed around mid-February and have their pups 63 days later in mid-April. At first, the female stays in the den with the pups and the male hunts and brings food back to her in the den. Later, they both hunt
and feeding all those hungry mouths becomes an intense full-time job for both of them. Any farm livestock that they can bring down is on their shopping list. They have been known to snatch small dogs that were on a leash, come up on porches and even go through pet doors to kill pets inside the house.
This is also a very bad time to leave babies and toddlers outside, as coyotes have been known to attack small children. So far the only confirmed fatalities are 3-year-old Kelly Kleen in Glendale, California, and 19-year-old Taylor Mitchell in Nova Scotia, Canada, but it’s important to realize that the coyote is technically a small species of wolf. americanshootingjournal.com 47
