Do coyotes kill deer regularly?
Coyotes do kill deer - both adults and fawns - and will feed on deer remains from highway accidents and gut piles left by hunters. A fawn study conducted in 2000 and 2001 on the Quehanna Wild Area and in Penns Valley - near State College - concluded that predators accounted for almost half of all fawn mortalities in the study. Black bears and coyotes were nearly equal in the number of fawns they killed and together, black bears and coyotes, accounted for two-thirds of all predator mortalities. Nonetheless, the fawn survival rates established for the two study areas were comparable to geographic areas similar to our state in the northern reaches of the white-tailed deer range and did not adversely impact the deer population's ability to replenish annual losses caused by hunting, predators and other limiting factors. In addition, we have not seen evidence that coyotes are killing a significant number of healthy adult deer in Pennsylvania. Being opportunists, they tend to spend more time patrolling the shoulders of state highways to consume deer killed in collisions with vehicles than stalking mature whitetails.
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