I am writing this because I haven’t seen any signs of coyotes in ages.
In the area where I live, there used to be coyotes all over the place.
However, I haven’t been noticing coyotes in the past few years.
I am concerned that this is because of people shooting them.
When my family first moved to our current house, around 8 years ago, my dad met some guy who lived nearby. The guy was bragging to my dad about how many coyotes he shot. Like dozens of them. Thankfully, that dude moved (I suspect he’s ruining ecosystems elsewhere), but in the past 8 years the coyotes have been declining, and I suspect people are still killing them.
A lot of people living nearby have tiny dogs/ small kids/ chickens. However, they were the ones who made the choice to move to a wooded area (As in acres and acres of deciduous lowland, vernal pools, and grasslands.) This is where wildlife lives. You can’t expect the wildlife to not hunt your little dogs and livestock, or dig in your trash, or raid your feeders, because this is their habitat. I get that they can be pests. I have had raccoons and foxes and minks eat my own chickens and quail. I have had them eat my birdfood and leave messes. I have had squirrels RUIN countless bird feeders. Its annoying, and I don’t like it. I improve the way I do things so that they can’t get into it. Then, they just mind their own business.
I have a suspicion that people are shooting animals instead of making their stuff less appealing to wildlife, as I have found a huge pile of raccoon skeletons, and like I said before, we aren’t seeing signs of coyotes anymore.
To top it all off where are the coyote remains? People left a pile of raccoon bones in the woods, but in my eight years of living in this area, I have yet to find any coyote remains. Are they selling the coyotes? If so, who are they selling them to? Is that legal?
If anyone knows anything that might help me understand why I’m not seeing any coyotes, please let me know. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I feel like people are shooting the coyotes.