Rattler

Agreed. I remember those days well and saw a lot more deer moving then. I still like doing drives.

Seems I got my "likes" back all of a sudden. Not sure how these are controlled here.

This is the part of the study they need to expand on. This is the problem in my area. "And several small-scale studies have shown that coyote predation can push down local deer populations." The article then drifts into the "Big Picture" watering down of the local numbers. "In the big picture, deer can handle—even thrive—under new pressure from coyotes." Saying "can handle" is a way of saying they will maintain a survivable level. Saying, "even thrive" indicates a possibility, but not necesssarily a reality. The study also included only two northern states where the Eastern coyote grows to it's heaviest, NY & NJ. That will tend to skew the numbers as well. I can attest to the fact this statement is completely wrong in my area and makes me wonder who this reseacher is and if she is credible. “Basically, coyotes mostly leave adult females alone and adult females are the most important cohort of the population when it comes to reproduction,” said the lead author, Eugenia Bragina, now with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Wildlife Conservation Society? I suspect bias here. “Because we detected no signal for eastern coyotes causing a decline in whitetail deer over time, our results imply that coyote removal would have little effect on increasing deer numbers in this region. Although coyote control could impact local deer dynamics for a short period of time in some situations, we do not expect coyote removal would be able to increase deer population size at a large spatial scale.” How much coyote removal was already going on at the time? They see no "decline" but don't consider the lack of increase here. Again, a mention that local control "could" have a positive effect, immediately minimized with global variables that don't seem to have been considered in the case being made to leave coyotes be. A lot of "research" today is funded by groups that want a desired result at the end. This was funded by the Wildlife Society. This is a link to their website. https://wildlife.org/ They are far from a pro hunting group. They are very much a pro wildlife group. I remain skeptical.

I'm out of likes or I would've given this one. BTW: Dick Cheney almost killed a man quail hunting. The man was accused of being in the wrong spot causing the accident. Cheney skated away unscathed. That disgusts me.

Maybe if we charged every shooter with a felony when someone gets shot, we wuld have far fewer shootings every year. If everyone knew how serious it would be, where no excuse would be tolerated, they would be more serious about following the rules of firearm safety. I've seen too many examples of shooter negligence attempting to be excused away by both the shooter and their defenders, to know many people do not give the issue the respect it deserves. Make the penalty severe enough to make everyone conciously consider where that bullet is going to go, every time you send it, and I'll bet the safety numbers get much better the very first year. There's to much desire to kill game and not even desire to be safe about it. That needs to change.

A good article just out on this round. I hope it's making a comeback. https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/2020/2/5/an-ode-to-the-325-wsm/?fbclid=IwAR2Ff2o4TWYZp5XPkjKu71wg9PMMdY_yMUZGppsolutWMc64S8fEqK5jNzM

You're right it does. I missed that. That's new to me too. In my day it was firearm safety. I guess they anticipated my point of view when they added the orange line to the rules. Sly little devils. But it still puts the burden of not getting shot partially, or maybe totally, on you.

It would be a honor to hunt with the man.

Mind you, I am not opposed to orange. I hate it, but am not opposed to it. I'm opposed to putting it in the safety rules of SAFE GUN HANDLING. It belongs in the area of SELF PRESERVATION. The rules of safe gun handling also apply to the range. Don't see many on the range wearing orange. Of course it's a safety issue, but it's to protect you from someone who's not safe. There is no excuse for an accidental shooting, none! But I feel some have been at least partially excused because the poor old guy walking his dog wasn't wearing orange. If I ever hear anyone tell me the shooting wasn't their fault because the person they shot wasn't wearing orange, they will be in danger of getting shot right there. God help me control myself.

Heard a joke about orange once. A blind woman gets an eye transplant and can see for the first time in her life. Her friends take her out to celebrate and as they approach a bar in town they see two drunk guys in orange hats and vests stumble into the street. She asks why are they wearing that orange stuff? They tell her, "It's so they can be seen better". To which she replies, "That's good. All drunks should be easy to spot."

Oh I wear it alright, but hate it and the fact idiots force me to. But common sense should put the burden on the shooter, not the victim. I'm pretty sure I've read cases where idiot shooters tried to excuse their failure to follow rule #3 on the victim not wearing orange. That just tightens my jaw. Have we created an excuse for idiots with the orange recommendation?

You also wear a seatbelt to prevent injury from an accident that is your fault, just like wearing a treestand harness prevents you from hurting yourself. Orange is not going to prevent a hunter from hurting himself.

Precisely. I'm saying safety rules apply to the shooter. The orange recommendation is there because not all shooters follow the safety rules. If all shooters strictly followed rule #3, the orange rule would become unnecessary. All I'm saying is, adding it to the safety rules places the blame on the victim not wearing orange instead of the shooter not following rule #3. Keep in mind there are many non-hunters in the woods too and they wear orange because they percieve all hunters as idiots. Adding it to the safety rules supports that perception.

PS. I'm feeling argumentative lately because I'm feeling overwhelmed by the death of common sense. Too much analyzation of society when hunting yotes in the dark I guess.

The first four are the shooters responsibility. Does the shooter wearing orange prevent the shooter from shooting someone? Seems to me it gives an idiot an excuse if he shoots someone who wasn't wearing orange and I disagree with that. Just doesn't make sense. Not saying hunter's should not wear it, but that wasn't there when I took my hunter safety class. It was recommended as a measure I should take because there were idiots out there.

Since when is wearing orange or pink part of the rules of hunter safety? Doesn't that put the burden of getting shot on the victim? Isn't that in contrast to item # 3? It's something we need to do because we excuse the idiots who fail to identify their targets and what's beyond them, and never consider whether there's a proper backstop to end the bullet's flight. I'm all for lower accident rates, but the victim is never responsible for being shot. the primary rules of hunter safety: Treat every firearm as if it were loaded; Control the muzzle, keep it pointed in a safe direction; Identify your target and what lies beyond; Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire; Wear hunter orange or pink.

A very well thought out explanation. https://www.linkedin.com/content-guest/article/mayor-livermore-california-explains-trumps-popularity-julian-mccall?fbclid=IwAR2NCuvuZajib9vsZ-GgRWFT3a61SXi_qB1-L6Yu9jKTB90dYu6_Tu0tmT8

I don't believe it was the DEC. I suspect animal activists hoping to ruin hunting for deer by depleting the deer population with predators. Got to be plenty of them animal lovers out in the Hamptons.

The only threat yotes place on Long Island right now is deer predation. I have heard stories Long Island has lots of deer and some big one's too. It may not be long before that will become a fond memory if the yote population explodes like it did in my area of the Catskills. What more do you need to be concerned?

No, I sincerely believe the DEC wants to protect the yote pups during that time and allow the yotes to deplete the fawns in order to minimize deer numbers, because that's what they accomplish by closing the yote season.

Master's in Business Administration and Management from U of MD and 20 years of field research with real life Eastern Coyote in their natural environment. How about yours?

Eastern coyotes are opportunistic omnivores and will prey on whatever is available and easy to kill or scavenge. Though they are known to take anything from mice to moose,[24] the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources lists their main prey items as rabbits, hares, and deer in the winter and small mammals, wild berries, birds, amphibians, and grasshoppers in the summer.[25] Their diet shifts with the changing seasons. It can include, but is not limited to, insects and berries during summer and small mammals in the fall and winter. As winter becomes harder later in the season, larger game such as the white-tailed deer become targeted. In spring fawns are targeted instead.

I happened to pull up and watch this video of Dan Flores lecturing at Brigham Young University to find out who he is. What I see here is not a scientist, but a romanticist. He has clearly studied the history of the coyote, but displays no science or biology credentials to support his views on the subject, even readily admitting he was inspired at 12 years old to defend yotes by Walt Disney and his "Coyote's Lament" short film. I can't help but think he must have also been inspired by "Bambi" as well. He wallows in the ancient deification of yotes by primitive people and modern day bohemians as if that was some sort of justification for loving them. He even ventures into the realm of Wile E. Coyote, of road runner cartoons to further persuade us yotes are to be respected. Apparently he is degreed in History, not science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Flores He does a long winded dissertation on attempts to poison and trap yotes in the past. However, not once did he address any of the reasons coyote have been persecuted all these years, as if to say they are merely misunderstood creatures that are harmless. I did not hear him say anything about Eastern Coyotes, touch upon how they are different, or what types of problems they cause. He is right that the methods tried in the past have had no impact on lowering yote numbers, but he's promoting the fatalist view that we must simply accept them, and all the baggage they bring with them, and conform to a life yotes manipulate. He seems to believe we should all allow nature to rule our lives without being able to control nature for our benefit. Not having anything invested in any area that stands to lose money because of yotes, I can see how he might feel that way. He is a die hard conservationist, which is to say preservationist. It's an emotional appeal, not scientific data. Watch for yourself: