Another (just published in the current issue of he Journal of Wildlife Management) reinforcing Study pointing to the fact that Eastern Coyote colonization across eastern North America from the 1940's to present day has not dampened deer herds............"Overall, deer populations in all states experienced positive population growth following coyote arrival".........."Time since coyote arrival was not a significant predictor in any deer population models and our results indicate that coyotes are not controlling deer populations at a large spatial scale in eastern North America"............."Even when survival of fawns is low(Coyotes and Black Bears do kill deer fawns in first three weeks of their birth), deer populations may be sustained by high adult female survival (Robinson et al. 2014)"..............."Even though deer are prominent in eastern coyote diets (McVey et al. 2013, Chitwood et al. 2014, Swingen et al. 2015), and their predation on fawns is well documented (Kilgo et al. 2012, Chitwood et al. 2015b), the extent to which coyotes can hunt prey as large as an adult white-tailed deer (>50 kg) is debated (Chitwood et al. 2015a, Kilgo et al. 2016)"............"Comparisons across the Carnivora order show an energetic threshold, with predators below 21.5 kg generally specializing in smaller prey (below predator mass) and predators above 21.5 kg energetically constrained to large prey (near or above predator mass, Carbone et al. 1999)"............"Eastern coyote populations average 14–16 kg (Way 2007), well below the 21.5-kg threshold, suggesting they are too small to consistently kill adult deer"............"We(the research team) detected no signal for eastern coyotes causing a decline of white-tailed deer over time"............. "Our results imply that coyote removal would have little effect on increasing deer numbers in this region".............."Although coyote control may influence local deer dynamics for short periods of time in some situations, we do not expect coyote removal would be able to increase deer population size at large spatial scales"................The bottom line is that we need Eastern Wolves and Pumas back in our woodlands and fields to restore the historical 6-12 deer per square mile(at time of European colonization) rather than the 20 to 30 to 40+ deer per square mile that are currently nubbing our forest seedlings before they can take their place as forest citizens

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https://redwolves.com/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Bragina_et_al-2019-The_Journal_of_Wildlife_Management.pdf

Effects on White-Tailed Deer Following Eastern Coyote Colonization 

EUGENIA V. BRAGIN(lead author); E-mail: e.bragina@gmail.com
 1 Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA ROLAND KAYS, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, 11 West Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601, USA ALLISON HODY, Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA CHRISTOPHER E. MOORMAN, Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA CHRISTOPHER S. DEPERNO, Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Program, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA L. SCOTT MILLS, Wildlife Biology Program and Office of Research and Creative Scholarship, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA

 ABSTRACT

The expansion or recovery of predators can affect local prey populations. Since the 1940s, coyotes (Canis latrans) have expanded into eastern North America where they are now the largest predator and prey on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). However, their effect on deer populations remains controversial.

We tested the hypothesis that coyotes, as a novel predator, would affect deer population dynamics across large spatial scales, and the strongest effects would occur after a time lag following initial coyote colonization that allows for the predator populations to grow.

We evaluated deer population trends from 1981 to 2014 in 384 counties of 6 eastern states in the United States with linear mixed models. We included deer harvest data as a proxy for deer relative abundance, years since coyote arrival in a county as a proxy of coyote abundance, and landscape and climate covariates to account for environmental effects.

Overall, deer populations in all states experienced positive population growth following coyote arrival. Time since coyote arrival was not a significant predictor in any deer population models and our results indicate that coyotes are not  controlling deer populations at a large spatial scale in eastern North America.

 2019 The Wildlife Society