Coyote survival in a row-crop agricultural landscape

Abstract

With intensive farming, planting and harvest are the primary disturbance factors driving cover dynamics that influence wildlife communities. A top predator, coyotes ( Canis latrans Say, 1823) impact other wildlife when populations are high. Thus, knowledge of coyote demographics in agricultural habitat is critical to understanding ecosystem dynamics. We studied survival of 59 radio-collared coyotes (28 juveniles, 31 adults) from 1996 to 2001 in intensively farmed central Illinois. Logistic regression suggested that age and year were important covariates, but sex was not. Divergence in age-specific Kaplan–Meier survival functions occurred during fall harvest because of higher mortality among juveniles. Annual survival (30 April – 29 April) was 0.59 (95% CI = 0.47–0.71) for adults and 0.13 (0.06–0.20) for juveniles captured after June 1. Shooting (58% of mortality) was the principal cause of mortality, followed by road kills (24%) and other mortalities. Mortality of juveniles following agricultural harvest probably occurs because of inexperience, dispersal through unfamiliar territory, intense human activity, and catastrophic loss of agricultural cover. In contrast, we recorded no shootings of coyotes during the growing season when agricultural cover was highest (14 June – 29 September) despite a year-round open hunting season on coyotes in Illinois.

Use of Telemetry Data to Investigate Home Range and Habitat Selection in Mammalian Carnivores

“…Some predator species compensate for high mortality levels resulting from exploitation (e.g., trapping, hunting, etc.) by increasing their litter size or reproductive output (e.g., van Deelen & Gosselink, 2006). Although an accidental death caused by a vehicle is not the same than exploitation, it may contribute to the adverse effects that other human activities in the area or nearby (e.g., tourism, trapping, farming) may have on the red-fox population inhabiting the study site.…”

Habitat use and home range size of red foxes in Prince Edward Island (Canada) based on snow-tracking and radio-telemetry data

“…Some predator species compensate for high mortality levels resulting from exploitation (e.g., trapping, hunting, etc.) by increasing their litter size or reproductive output (e.g., [49]). An overabundance of red foxes within the boundaries of the park is of particular concern for various reasons.…”

Is the Urban Coyote a Misanthropic Synanthrope? The Case from Chicago

“…Rural Illinois, like most of the midwestern United States, is a landscape dominated by row-crop agriculture, and hunting of coyotes occurs year-round without any regulatory constraints such as bag limits. Given intensive hunting and trapping pressure, coyote vulnerability is magnified in a landscape that undergoes a major loss of cover (agricultural crops) during substantial parts of the year (Van Deelen and Gosselink 2006). Large metropolitan areas contrast with the larger rural landscape by affording protection from exploitation as well as the extensive seasonal loss of habitat via harvest of crops.…”