Coyote Control in the Eastern United States

The coyote (Canis latrans) is a native of the plains and mountainous areas of the western United States but has become established throughout most of the eastern United States in the last 20 years. Problems associated with this population expansion are increasing. Some coyotes kill and eat poultry, calves, goats, sheep, other livestock, rodents, rabbits, white-tailed deer fawns, and other wildlife. Coyotes are opportunistic and will eat melons, corn, other agricultural crops, and unattended domestic animals and pets.

Coyotes usually weigh from 23 to 40 pounds, midsized between foxes and wolves. Coyotes breed in late winter, and usually four to six pups are born in the spring. Dens are normally in the ground, rock outcroppings, hollow trees, or brush piles. The male helps care for the young, and family groups remain closely associated through the fall.

The coyote's coat is a salt and pepper gray, with variations from lighter colors in some individuals to almost black in others. The ears are always erect and the tail, which may be black-tipped, is usually straight and is carried below a level position rather than upturned. Coyote tracks are longer from front to rear than from side to side. By comparison, most dog tracks tend to be more rounded. Also, nail imprints of the middle toes of the coyote tend to converge rather than radiate in the fan-shaped pattern found in most dog tracks.

Coyotes frequently reveal their presence at evening and occasionally at dawn, their two periods of greatest activity, by a chorus of yipping and howling. The home range varies from 3 to 30 square miles, with the male's ranges usually larger than the female's.

Coyotes are usually intelligent, and the species has survived extensive control measures in some western states. Individually, each coyote is different. Most cause no significant damage and are not too difficult to catch, but some individuals may challenge your trapping ability and require extra precautions when handling and setting traps.

Philosophies for dealing with coyote damage vary; some people favor eradication, while others oppose any form of control. Experience in western states indicates that eradication is both impossible and impractical. Many control techniques used in the West, such as aerial gunning, poisons, M-44 ejector devices, and coyote getters cannot be recommended for widespread use in the East.

The purpose of this publication is to assist individuals in minimizing or preventing coyote damage through techniques that are compatible with social considerations, wildlife management practices, and habitat conditions of the eastern United States.

If you desire to begin coyote control, contact your State Fish and Wildlife Agency or Conservation Department for information on appropriate restrictions, laws, and regulations.

Damage Prevention

Try to anticipate conditions and times when damage is likely and use good husbandry or other preventive practices.

Unprotected poultry, sheep, goats, and newborn calves are particularly vulnerable to coyote predation. Confine sheep and goats, particularly during lambing and kidding seasons and at night, to help prevent losses.

Move springer cows to barns or pens near lighted areas or human habitation to discourage coyote depredation on newborn calves and cows in labor. Remove dead livestock carcasses from production areas to prevent conditions that attract coyotes. However, once a serious damage problem has developed, livestock carcasses may be used to attract or concentrate coyote travel and aid in control.

Some breeds of guard dogs have been used successfully to minimize coyote damage.

Shooting

In some states, the incidental harvest of coyotes by hunters has accounted for 90 percent of the annual harvest. Greater human population densities in eastern compared to western states may account for more hunter-coyote encounters. In some states, traditionally longer hunting seasons and the use of dogs may also increase hunter-coyote encounters. Where appropriate, landowners and state conservation agencies could encourage coyote harvest to reduce populations temporarily locally and statewide. Landowners visiting pastures or working fields may also have opportunities to shoot coyotes.

Predator calling combined with shooting is another technique for harvesting coyotes. This practice involves the use of electronic devices or hand-held calls that use a wind vibrated reed to produce sounds that simulate the distress cry of prey to attract coyotes within range. The technique can be effective both during the day and at night with the aid of a spotlight. However, you should check state laws and regulations to insure that these activities are legal.

Denning

Killing adult coyotes and their pups in or near their dens can help reduce local populations and may solve specific local predation problems. In eastern states, coyotes often use brush piles left from clearing operations as dens. You should be watchful for potential coyote dens year-round so that you can find litters in the spring and destroy them quickly before they are moved.

Trapping

Trapping is one of the most effective methods for controlling troublesome coyotes. No. 3 or 4 long or coil spring leghold traps are good choices for the eastern states. Advantages of the coil spring trap are that trigger mechanisms (pan) can be adjusted to avoid catching nontarget animals, and these traps are more easily concealed than longspring traps.

In areas of deep and prolonged snow, longspring traps may be preferred. One advantage of leghold traps is that you can usually release nontarget animals unharmed.

Traps with padded jaws may be best for some special situations. If the use of a trap size or type is restricted, special permits from state conservation agencies are usually granted to landowners who request them for coyote control.

Equipment Needed

• A 4-by 4-foot plastic or other ground cover to keep human scent off the ground, to reduce site disturbance, and to hold excess soil for disposal when traps are being set.
• Clean rubber, leather, canvas, or plastic gloves for handling and setting traps.
• No. 3 coil spring traps with chains shortened to about 10 inches and modified with an end swivel. Some people prefer longspring traps with 6 feet of chain with a hook or other drag.
• Trap stakes of 5/8-inch steel reinforcing bar about 24 inches long for heavy clay soil and about 36 inches long for sandy soils. Round or flatten stake tops so they will hold a large washer. Insert stakes through the trap chain swivel so the washer retains the swivel, chain, and trap once you drive the stake in the ground.
• Digging tool.
• Dirt sifter with a 1/4-inch hardware cloth bottom.
• Odorless plastic or canvas trap pan covers stored in a small plastic bag until needed.
• Coyote urine and other lures.
• A large hammer or hatchet for driving stakes.
• A box, bucket, or packbasket to carry the supplies. Container should have an outside pouch to keep lures separated from other equipment.

Trap Preparation and Care

You can catch some coyotes with traps fresh out of the box, still covered with manufacturer's oil. Coyotes have a highly developed sense of smell, and older ones may smell the oil or other odors and avoid being caught. Therefore, use of clean, odorless traps gives greater assurance of success.

Pretrapping preparations involve boiling traps for about an hour in water with red oak bark, walnut or pecan hulls, sumac berries, speckled alder bark, or logwood crystals to blacken and remove rust, odors, grease, and oil. Hang traps up to cool where they can be kept clean and dry.

A thin layer of commercial trap wax or a mixture of 10 percent white beeswax and 90 percent canning paraffin helps preserve the traps and serves as a lubricant to speed trap action when sprung. You can apply a thin coating to traps by dipping them in a hot mixture of the wax. Heat the wax slowly to prevent a fire or explosion. Adjust triggers at this time to function at about 5 or more pounds of weight. Traps prepared in this way should function flawlessly until an animal is caught.

Take care not to touch traps or let them come in contact with lure, bait, animal fat, or anything that would soil them with human or animal odors. Wash and air-dry the ground cloth frequently to avoid leaving odors on the ground near the trap.

Sets

Three types of trap sets are commonly used with the coil spring trap to catch coyotes: dirt hole sets, scent post sets, and sets near travel routes. In all three sets, the techniques to stake, set, and conceal the trap are the same.

The dirt hole set is simply a hole about 1-5 inches in diameter, which simulates a site where another animal has buried food.

The scent post set simulates a place where a coyote has marked a territory with urine. Suitable scent post objects to hold lures may be a bleached bone, tuft of grass, cow chip, chunk of wood, or other small natural objects that will attract coyotes' attention but not frighten them.

A set near a travel route is used to catch coyotes near frequently traveled paths, trails, field edges or corners, crossings, or trails leading to carcasses where coyotes have fed earlier.

Avoid daytime trapping right next to old carcasses, as you may catch nontarget species. Place traps 50 or more feet upwind of older carcasses. Make the sets late in the afternoon, and keep them covered during the day with a box, disk harrow blade, old tub, or similar shield. Coyotes often return to feed on fresh kills and can be caught by placing one trap about 8 inches away from the portion being fed upon and another about 3 feet away. After one or two days, move the traps upwind about 50 feet.

Sites

Select an area to set a trap by the presence of coyote signs such as actual sightings, tracks, scats, carcasses or remains, digs under net wire fences, or other indications of recent coyote activity. Once you choose a general location, the prevailing wind direction and the type set (dirt hole, scent post, off trail or other) are important in selecting a specific spot to place the trap. The spot should be related to other features so that the odors from lures and scents will be swept downwind across an area that coyotes use frequently. This arrangement will attract the coyote to the set. Bare ground areas seem to work well, perhaps because they blend better with disturbed soil used to cover the trap.

Place traps for dirt hole sets, scent post sets, and sets near fresh carcasses so that the edge of the trap is about 8 inches away from the edge of the hole, the object on which urine is placed, or the carcass being fed on. Do not use urine or lure on a set at a carcass. Both are recommended for sets upwind of a carcass.

How To Make Sets

The first step in setting the trap is to put down the piece of canvas or plastic ground cover to work on. Then, wearing gloves and using a digging tool, dig a hole large and deep enough to conceal the trap with open jaws so that the trap is about 1/4 inch below the adjoining soil surface. If you use the longspring trap with chain and drag, make the hole large enough to accommodate this equipment. Loosen additional dirt in the bottom of the hole to provide a soft base in which to bed the trap. Keep stones, clods, and other spoil on the plastic sheet and discard them when the set is completed.

Still wearing the rubber gloves, insert the stake through the trap chain swivel, and drive it flush to the ground at the edge of the hole where it does not interfere with the trap. Then, set the trap and bed it by pressing it firmly into the hole. Press dirt around the outside edges of the trap jaws.

Place a cover over the trigger pan and under the trap jaws and add loose dirt to hold it in place. The cover keeps the space under the trigger pan from filling with dirt or sand that may prevent normal function. Cut a notch in the pan cover so that the dog of the trigger is not restrained when the trap springs.

Sift fine soil, humus, sand, old sawdust, leaf mulch, or a mixture of these or similar materials over the trap to cover it about 1/4 inch. Using the digging tool, carefully smooth high places and remove grass, stones, and other small objects. The finished set should blend as well as possible with the surroundings.

You would usually place a small amount of coyote bait (decayed meat chunks, fish oil, or prepared paste) in the bottom of the hole of dirt hole sets. Fish oil or prepared paste on a small stick is used beside trail sets. Check with the State Conservation or Fish and Wildlife Agency about any restrictions on the use of baits or lures.

You can scatter about 10 drops of coyote urine to the right or left edge of the sifted soil on a dirt hole set and apply about a tablespoon of urine to objects used in scent post sets.

Once you replace the trapping equipment in its container, pick up the plastic ground cover by its corners and dump the debris from the set well away from the set. Many trappers make combination sets about 20 feet apart and occasionally catch a coyote in each.

Check traps daily to service them and remove the catches. A restraining device made by attaching one end of a steel cable to the end of a 5-foot length of pipe and threading the other end through the pipe may help release nontarget catches. Coyotes can be killed by a shot in the head or lower chest from a .22 long rifle.

Pelt Preparation

The value of coyote pelts taken in winter can vary from $2 to $125 depending on demand and how carefully they are prepared for market. If you wish to prepare pelts for market, skin by making a cut up the back of each hind leg around the vent and along the bottom of the tail out to the tip. Remove the pelt, including the tail fur, carefully to avoid cutting holes in it. Remove excess flesh and fat from the skin using a fleshing tool and fleshing beam. Place the skin, skin-side-out, on a stretcher to dry overnight. Then, remove and turn it so that the fur side is out, and replace on the stretcher until completely dry, which may take 5 to 10 days. You can sell pelts separately or with other furs at auctions or to local fur buyers.

You can buy traps, swivels, sifters, digging tools, gloves, lures, urines, logwood crystals, fur stretchers, and other trapping supplies from local suppliers or order them from national trapping supply houses.

For Further Reading

Bekoff, M., ed. 1978. Coyotes: Biology, Behavior, and Management. Academic Press, Inc. New York, 384 pp.

McGrew, J. C. and W. F. Andelt. 1985. Livestock Guardian Dogs: A New Method of Reducing Livestock Losses. MF713. Cooperative Extension Service, Manhattan, Kansas. 8 pp.

Wade, D. A. 1983. Coyotes, pp. C-31 - C-41 in R. M. Timm, ed. Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage. Great Plains Agricultural Council. Wildlife Resource Committee. Nebraska Cooperative Extension Service, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Young, S. P. and H. H. T. Jackson. 1951. The Clever Coyote. The Stackpole Co., Harrisburg, PA. 411 pp.

Publication 1509
Extension Service of Mississippi State University, cooperating with U.S. Department of Agriculture. Published in furtherance of Acts of Congress, May 8 and June 30, 1914. Ronald A. Brown, Director