"White-tailed deer herds were once subject to predation from large predators such as the Eastern Timber Wolf and the Eastern Cougar; however, these predators no longer control deer herds in the east"......... "In fact, the deer herd will increase 30 to 40 percent per year when protected and under good habitat conditions"....... "Most of the deer herd recruitment must be removed annually to maintain the population at its current levels"....... "The only economically practical method of deer harvest management is through regulated hunting"----West Virginia Dept. of Ntl Resources.....WE disagree with this assessment.......There are plenty of deer for the humans, coyotes and black bears that inhabit the WEst Virginia,,,,,,,,,,and quite frankly, plenty of deer for Pumas and Wolves if we let them come back to the "Coal Miner State".........John McCoy who writes for The Charleston Gazette should reteract his Dec. 5, 2010 column where he calls for great reductions of Coyotes becasuse they are allegedly suppressing deer populations............C'mon John, a record 2011 deer hunting season just concluded with over 130,000 Whitetails taken down,,,,,,,,,and an acknowledgement by the Dept of Ntl Resources that the huge mast year in 2010 was the only reason for lack of hunter success(the deer did not need to come out into open fields to search for food with acorns aplenty in the woods)............Will we ever get past human hunter "success" as a barometer of how many deer are good for our woodlands?........Will we ever get past recoiling knee-jerk reactions that have us yelling out: KILL THOSE COYOTES?

W.Va. reports higher kill in all four deer seasons
By John McCoy
The Charleston Gazette



CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia's deer hunters enjoyed across-the-board success during the recently completed 2011 season. Statistics released Tuesday by state Division of Natural Resources officials show higher kills in all four of the state's deer seasons -- buck, antlerless, archery and muzzleloader.

Overall, hunters killed 132,323 whitetails, a 24 percent increase from 2010's total. Paul Johansen, the DNR's assistant wildlife chief, said the increase "wasn't unexpected." "Our [preseason] forecasters had predicted an increase across all deer seasons," he said. "It appears the prediction was accurate."

Johansen said 2010's dismal deer kill, and the conditions that caused it, helped hunters kill more deer in 2011. "The low kill in 2010 wasn't due to a shortage of deer," he said. "It was caused by a record-breaking acorn crop that scattered deer widely and made them less likely to come out into fields and field edges. Simply put, they were less vulnerable to the gun. A lot of deer that otherwise might have been killed survived the 2010 season.

"The abundance of acorns left deer in prime condition, and they came through the relatively mild winter of 2011 in excellent reproductive shape. That 'bubble' of under-harvested deer from 2010 helped create the increase hunters enjoyed in 2011 The largest increase, by far, came during the firearm season for bucks. Hunters killed 60,516 whitetails, a 39 percent increase from 2010's total of 43,461.

Archers enjoyed the second-largest increase. They killed 26,136 deer, up 19 percent from the previous year's 21,962. Muzzleloader enthusiasts killed 7,290, up 13 percent from 6,476; and hunters of antlerless deer killed 38,381, up 11 percent from 34,159.

Johansen believes deer were more vulnerable to hunters in 2011 because acorns were less abundant "We didn't have enough acorns to keep deer back in the woods," he said. "When acorns are relatively sparse, deer move into fields and become easier to hunt. They're also more susceptible to hunters who use corn or apples for bait."

Johansen said 2011's across-the-board harvest increase validated the DNR's deer-management efforts.
"Our plan tells us to stay the course and to base our management on the best available information and the best available science, and that's what we did," he said. "When [the 2010] buck kill dropped 32 percent, we didn't overreact. We plugged the numbers into our plan and made a few adjustments in the [antlerless-deer hunting] regulations. "I think the [2011] harvest speaks for itself. The plan served the sportsmen and the citizens of the state quite well."
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Are coyotes suppressing W.Va's deer population?
December 5, 2010 by John McCoy
This week's column examines whether West Virginia's burgeoning coyote population is helping keep the state's deer population depressed:

Eastern Coyote

Coyotes have been bopping around the West Virginia landscape for more than three decades now, yet one gets the impression we still don't know how much damage they're doing to the state's many wildlife species.

That needs to change. They are, after all, predators – and darned effective ones, at that.
For the last decade or so, Mountain State hunters have wondered out loud just how many fawns and adult deer fall prey to coyotes every year. Several times in the past few years, I've posed that very question to Division of Natural Resources officials.

Each time, I was reassured — with the sort of condescending paternalism experts reserve for particularly thick-headed laymen — that "coyotes are no threat to deer herds because a study done in Texas showed that coyotes seldom feed on deer."

I'm sure they were right — about Texas coyotes, which average just 25 to 35 pounds apiece.

Eastern coyotes run considerably larger, up to 60 pounds or thereabouts. And, according to research conducted by the Eastern Coyote Research consulting firm, they appear quite a bit more capable of bringing down deer than their Western cousins.

Why?

As it turns out, Eastern coyotes are part wolf.

Two separate studies, independently conducted in the northeast from New Jersey to Maine, turned up traces of wolf DNA in tissue samples taken from the coyotes being researched.

Researchers hypothesize that when Western coyotes passed through the Great Lakes states and southern Canada during their eastward migration, they interbred with wolves.

The DNA findings seem to answer three long-standing questions about Eastern coyotes — why they're larger, why their coats vary in color from tan to almost black, and why they're so much more adept at hunting deer.

Now that West Virginia wildlife officials know how the critters roaming our hills differ from standard-issue coyotes, maybe those officials will get more serious about determining coyotes' effect on the ecosystem.

Two research projects are already underway. Neither is associated with the DNR, but an agency spokesman said biologists are eager to see both studies' results.

The first should determine how heavily coyotes prey on deer and other Mountain State wildlife species. A West Virginia University graduate student, Geriann Albers, is picking apart coyote stomach contents and scat samples and is microscopically examining hairs and bone fragments to determine which creatures the coyotes ate.

The second study, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's pest-control division, tracks radio-collared coyotes to discover how they establish home ranges. Researcher Lauren Mastro believes the study will teach farmers and predator-control agents how better to protect livestock from predation.

Albers' study will end late next year. Mastro's will finish up late in 2012. Paul Johansen, the DNR's assistant wildlife chief, said he and other biologists "will be watching the results of those studies very closely."

It would behoove them to do so. Deer hunting is a $145 million-a-year industry in the Mountain State, and the sale of hunting licenses is the DNR's principal source of annual revenue. If coyotes indeed turn out to be a substantial threat to deer, DNR officials might finally be able to convince rank-and-file sportsmen to hunt coyotes, if for no other reason than to protect the state's whitetails