Several years ago the state passed a law making it a felony to kill domestic animals. All my life it has been a problem with folks dumping unwanted cats and dogs out in the country. You wake up some morning with new strays on the back porch. I quit killing coyotes and the strays disappear quickly. Also all the "Free Range " cats and dogs people in the area allow to roam decreased in numbers. Seldom see one now. I hate the coyotes but hate flea and tick infested strays worse. The armadillos I still kill on sight. They can dig up my yard over night. I mow several acres and I'm not going to poison my yard to kill the worms and grubs to get rid of armadillos. I can shoot them and by daylight the coyotes have carried the dead armadillos off. As bad as I hate them the coyotes are serving a purpose here. They are taking care of a problem caused by people that don't care enough about animals to keep them up or pay the animal lover groups to take them. Rant over.
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What is considered an unwelcome critter is very dependent on where you are located and the issues surrounding it.
In Iowa ground hogs are not that common. I might see one a couple of times a year, saw one earlier this week.
In New Zealand someone thought it would be neat to release Australian possums there.. They exploded in NZ. Actually saw a road sign that encouraged you to swerve your car and run them over. In Australia they are rare.
Fleener
In Iowa ground hogs are not that common. I might see one a couple of times a year, saw one earlier this week.
In New Zealand someone thought it would be neat to release Australian possums there.. They exploded in NZ. Actually saw a road sign that encouraged you to swerve your car and run them over. In Australia they are rare.
Fleener
An interesting perspective.
Some years ago I call Texas Parks and Wildlife about a mountain lion on my property. During the conversation I mentioned the number of coyotes I was seeing and the increased number of feral hogs. I asked the biologist if I should be removing the coyotes. He said no.
He said no, the coyotes would be working on reducing the number of baby pigs.
My wife feeds critters in the back yard, it keeps her entertained.
She has a couple of grey foxes that come every so often along with a feral cat. The foxes are scared of the cat. In fact they are scared of the possum also. Foxes are very timid animals.
We had one which would sleep in a cast iron pot in the back yard.
I have seen many rabbits here but can never hunt them as they are long gone before season. Fox. I never seen a fox take on a chuck either. One got in the coop and killed 17 chickens and never took one to eat. My neighbor lost so many chickens that got under the fence he shoots every one he sees. We have so many I put the call out and in a few minutes I shot 5. Now yotes have moved in and are doing a job on our deer.
Pups are cute so tree huggers should take them in along with all the illegals pouring across the border. Soon the pups are killers. The worst are still cats running free. When hunting I killed every cat in the fields or woods. One was skinning a live bunny. I hunted rabbits in the snow with a bow and found 5 dead pheasants with cat tracks. I found it under a billboard at the road and hit it. Big yellow with a collar. I found out later the cat actually attacked other hunters.
My dog loves deer and when we are out she will sit next to me and deer will come to 10' of us with no fear. She ignores the squirrels too. I have a problem when she sees a toad. She goes on point and wants it to jump so she can chase it. NO, no toad or you get sick. She never, ever forgets where she seen a toad either. days later she goes to the spot. I will never and have never owned a dog that would kill anything. All will sleep with a cat on them too. I still will not have a cat in the house. We get along and I like them if kept home. My wife has 2 in the green house for mice but they ruin her plants. My little dog loves cats and will chase them up a tree, then the cat will come down to rub against my dog. We had some great cats but disease and fox or yotes got them.
Now dogs in the woods, people here will kill all pets that get loose for fun. I lost many that would not kill a mouse. Use judgment, the dog might belong to a little girl. One year a Dalmatian would find me when deer hunting. The dog could not hear. I scooped him up and took him home. I knew the owner. Once he followed me out to my truck. I put him in and took him home again. I will give up a day of hunting to take him home.
Pups are cute so tree huggers should take them in along with all the illegals pouring across the border. Soon the pups are killers. The worst are still cats running free. When hunting I killed every cat in the fields or woods. One was skinning a live bunny. I hunted rabbits in the snow with a bow and found 5 dead pheasants with cat tracks. I found it under a billboard at the road and hit it. Big yellow with a collar. I found out later the cat actually attacked other hunters.
My dog loves deer and when we are out she will sit next to me and deer will come to 10' of us with no fear. She ignores the squirrels too. I have a problem when she sees a toad. She goes on point and wants it to jump so she can chase it. NO, no toad or you get sick. She never, ever forgets where she seen a toad either. days later she goes to the spot. I will never and have never owned a dog that would kill anything. All will sleep with a cat on them too. I still will not have a cat in the house. We get along and I like them if kept home. My wife has 2 in the green house for mice but they ruin her plants. My little dog loves cats and will chase them up a tree, then the cat will come down to rub against my dog. We had some great cats but disease and fox or yotes got them.
Now dogs in the woods, people here will kill all pets that get loose for fun. I lost many that would not kill a mouse. Use judgment, the dog might belong to a little girl. One year a Dalmatian would find me when deer hunting. The dog could not hear. I scooped him up and took him home. I knew the owner. Once he followed me out to my truck. I put him in and took him home again. I will give up a day of hunting to take him home.
hanshi
Cannon
I really try not to kill any wild babies; but in the deer woods it's easy to make a mistake. In my native Georgia we had lots of coyotes but also lots of turkey and deer. I frequently saw the coyotes when hunting but only shot a single one with thick fur. I wouldn't shoot a pup if at all possible. Foxes were a common sight but I never shot one. Bobcats were a different story. I saw them rather frequently in the deer woods. I did kill two with a muzzleloader but let others walk.
It was common to see coyotes in the meadows catching rats and mice. They'd leap into the air and come down almost head first and usually got what they were after.
Armadillos are products of a mating between a possum and a turtle, gotcha? They were all over the place and entertaining to watch. Yes, they do often harbor leprosy bacteria but the risk of infection is almost nil. There were caught for "pets" and entered in armadillo races. If one is immune compromised it's recommended that the armored critters be avoided, just in case.
It was common to see coyotes in the meadows catching rats and mice. They'd leap into the air and come down almost head first and usually got what they were after.
Armadillos are products of a mating between a possum and a turtle, gotcha? They were all over the place and entertaining to watch. Yes, they do often harbor leprosy bacteria but the risk of infection is almost nil. There were caught for "pets" and entered in armadillo races. If one is immune compromised it's recommended that the armored critters be avoided, just in case.
I keep seeing a white tailed doe that is missing about an inch of the tips of both ears, perfectly flat across the top on both. I never heard of coyotes chewing off calves ears, I wonder if that's what happened to this doe?
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Yep, coyotes may get a few pigs, not enough to matter. In 19 years and untold thousands of hours of hunting, trapping and just observing wild hogs i've never seen a coyote take a pig. i have caught two big boar hogs in the act of killing fawns.
Coyotes also kill lots of fawns. In a study of fawn mortality conducted in the 1970s in SW Oklahoma, coyotes killed about 75 percent of fawns. That study resulted in a program of shooting coyotes from the air and an extensive trapping program The result was a dramatic increase in the deer population.
i will keep on killing coyotes of all sizes: Ditto for hogs.
Very true. Rabbits were introduced too, and in parts of NZ the farmland became so infested with them that my late father, as a teenager in rural NZ in the '40s, made his pocket money by shooting dozens - and sometimes hundreds, in a day.
We humans have a way of causing the balance of nature get out of whack. Through responsible hunting practices we do our part to manage that imbalance. Good thread.
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