WYOMING COYOTE

I’d never hunted predators before and the thought was conflicting. Hunting them seemed different, look into a deer’s eye and there isn’t a huge amount going on – look into a dog’s and tell me there isn’t more there.

Coyotes will mate for life, call me a softy but I’d hate to break a pair so I quietly hoped for a young one or an old loner. Coyotes will also raise other dogs cubs, unlike lions, cats etc. which will kill foreign young. In North America, coyotes are heavily persecuted and are shot on sight by anyone who happens to be there. There’s a $2,000,000 budget for predator control in Wyoming and they are often controlled using planes funded by the federal government. This is a part of Kory’s job as the county trapper, which covers all kinds of problem animal management like mountain lion and even bears. This method is cheaper than a chopper but uses the same pilot/shooter principal, often with a guy on the ground coordinating as well – and it’s no less dangerous than our Wild West venison recovery days. Kory says they’ve lost too many good men, and a chopper is used when they have the budget but with the vast areas involved, this isn’t often possible.

Kory will kill several hundred coyotes a year through