Fawns are on the ground. Shoot coyotes

I am in a rural area just outside Kansas City, KS.

Lately, coyotes has been very active around the house. They are also hunting much earlier in the day.

We also have many bobcat, but they keep a lower profile; quiet when they hunt.

Lately, there have been more verified sightings of mountain lions, mostly on the Missouri side of the river. The theory us that they are roaming in from other areas and may not be breading locally.

Even the local raccoons can be nasty. They get very large and sometimes harass the dogs.

If the critters become too much of a problem, I might go with a suppressor to minimize annoying people.
 
I've no clue as to how wildlife biologists do the measuring, but "they say" that there is certainly less scent from fawns and from cottontail rabbits than from other animals. That's from the guys at Texas Parks & Wildlife, anyhow.
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TPWD also says that a hog's shield is scar tissue from fighting other hogs, which is equally ignorant.

So here is some TPWD information....http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_lf_w7000_1680_05_10.pdf
The fawns are born with cryptic-pattern white spots and are virtually odorless. These two features enable the fawn to survive the first few weeks of its life. Its natural defense is being able to lie completely motionless for hours. The doe, whose odor and size would naturally attract predators, purposefully leaves her fawn(s) unattended for hours at a time while she finds food for herself, and in an attempt to keep from attracting predators to her otherwise defenseless offspring.
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As noted here, there is no way for a furred animal not to have odor or to somehow not have as much odor. They have plenty of odor, just not odor from musk glands and other mating-related aspects.
http://www.knowhunting.com/article.html?id=39

As noted in the following information, it would seem that the mother does staying away from the fawn much of the time is to help keep predators from being attracted to where the fawn is. Somehow that has morphed into the fawn not having odor.
http://www.buchananforestproperties.com/blog/?p=80

What is really interesting is that fawns apparently gain odor when they are capable of keeping up with their mother. Amazing. No, mothers may stay away from fawns so as to not attract predators to the fawn's location because the fawn isn't sufficiently ambulatory to evade predators.

Yeah, there are lots of biologists and wildlife people that make the claim about the lack of odor, but if you look closely, you will notice that none of them cite any particular study where they have learned the information. It is nothing but folklore.

Part of what is really ironic about the claim of fawns not having odors is that the fawns' mothers identify their particular young by, wait for it....., odor.

The odors of fawns may be reduced, but not because fawns are somehow biologically special in having stealthy body tissues that have no smell. It is likely because of the mother's care of the fawn, keeping it clean via anogenital licking and other cleaning, and then consuming urine and feces produced by the fawn. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.23...id=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=56241224953 So yeah, a fawn may not have the nasty smell of puppies that often urinate on themselves and lay and play in their own waste, but the issue isn't because the fawns are special. It is because the mother's care of the fawn's toiletry habits and hygene.
 
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I've no clue as to how wildlife biologists do the measuring, but "they say" that there is certainly less scent from fawns and from cottontail rabbits than from other animals. That's from the guys at Texas Parks & Wildlife, anyhow.
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Growing up, I used to hunt cottontails with my Black and Tan hound. He never had any problem following the sent of a rabbit.
 
Around here, the biggest predator on fawns is Black Bear. They find them by scent also, but Bears are thought to have the best sense of smell of any animal on earth. For example, the average dog's sense of smell is 100 times better than a humans. A blood hound's is 300 times better. A bear's sense of smell is 7 times better than a blood hound's or 2,100 times better than a human. What this or whether fawns have no scent, a little scent or lots of scent has to do with shooting 'yotes, I don't know. But I agree.......

Kill any coyote you can, no matter the time of year.
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"Less" does not equal "none". :D FWIW, I've watched my Alsatian Shepherd trot right past a cottontail which was within a foot of the trail. Granted, he wasn't much of a scent-trail dog, but still...

So Momma Doe licks the fawn all tidy-clean. If the result is less scent, does the cause really matter?
 
So Momma Doe licks the fawn all tidy-clean. If the result is less scent, does the cause really matter?
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Well I guess that just really depends on whether or not you actually want to understand what is going on and if the information being passed onto is actually based on reality or not.

I would contend that when a set of circumstances is described to you that doesn't make much sense (pun intended), or the explanation for the circumstances doesn't make much sense, then there is probably good reason to question the validity of it.

There seems to be quite a bit of folklore associated with firearms, ballistics, terminal ballistics, and hunting. I don't see where passing on hokey information is beneficial to anyone.

I actually find the notion of fawns being virtually odorless as per TPWD to be rather interesting. Just because an animal is "virtually odorless" to humans doesn't mean it is virtually odorless to predators. Generally speaking, humans don't hunt by smell. The implication there is that if we can't smell it or smell it well, nothing else can, and that would likely be an incorrect statement since our capabilities are much less than those of many predators.

Above you also mentioned...
Wiping a fawn's butt with a warm, wet sponge triggers the nursing instinct, if you try to raise one. Baby bottles work well. Mix Carnation canned milk in a 1:3 ratio with water.
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This activity is frowned upon by your friends at TPWD unless you first obtain the proper permits to do so. No person may legally be in possession of a live white-tailed deer in Texas without the proper permit from Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Primarily, this is a Rehabilitator's Permit, Deer Breeder's Permit, or a Transfer Permit with an authorized Facility Id Number for Nursing or Veterinary Care...just in case anyone thought it might be fun to try.
 
Back when we raised two fawns, SFAIK there was no permit system. The deal was that the deer could not be restrained. Ours were free to come and go as they wished, over several hundred acres and a residential subdivision.

Murgatroyd wandered through unfinished houses, helped the workmen eat their sandwiches, danced on top of cars (dusty hoofprints as proof) and then returned to the house in the evening.

Deer like cookie crumbs, the gravy from Big Brother stew, and honeysuckle blossoms. They will attack a garden hose, trying to kill the snake. They do not object to scotch and water--and neither does a Polish game cock.

Papillon went back to the woods. Murgatroyd stayed, figuring he had a good thing going. He socialized well with a palomino gelding, a goat, a goose, two cats and the shepherd.
 
I have a squirrel, I think it's illegal to have one also but, the little dude has lived with me for years. He likes nuts...alOt!! An occasional treat of Cheetos or a McDonald's French fry is not rejected either. He was raised on a bottle, never expected to survive but several years later still going strong. He's pretty social and likes to wrestle... But... A very sore looser lol
 
I really doubt that having a pet squirrel is illegal in Texas. My father had some that would come when "chirped" at, enjoying pecans. Quail are easily gentled down to come when called, just like deer. And, I found, cottontails will get used to a person such that they just sit and watch and don't run away.

Food = welfare for critters. :)
 
Shooting yotes!

yep those coyotes are a serious issue around where i live (60 miles from dallas, texas) the other day when i let my dog out to use the restroom (chihuahua) a coyote was walking les then 50 feet from my front door. im starting to feel the need to carry a revolver on me just to let my dog use the restroom... yet people say its wrong that we hunters shoot coyotes? happy hunting :)
-Corey
 
Hunters are not killing enough coyotes. Fort Sill started a good thing last muzzleloader deer season; kill a coyote and get your choice of hunting areas at the next days drawing.

In SW OK the coyotes get over one third of the fawns, bobcats get a few. i killed two big boar hogs in the act of eating fawns. The game commissions of some states do little to help the situation: Here in OK we cannot shoot coyotes at night. Some states actually have a season on coyotes. NY has a season but does let its hunters kill coyotes at night.

i have a rifle in the truck 27/7 and often pop coyotes in fields.
 
Here in MI there is a season, but a landowner can kill a coyote that's "doing or about to do damage" anytime.

Ever seen a coyote that's NOT about to do damage?
 
I have a squirrel, I think it's illegal to have one also but, the little dude has lived with me for years. He likes nuts...alOt!! An occasional treat of Cheetos or a McDonald's French fry is not rejected either. He was raised on a bottle, never expected to survive but several years later still going strong. He's pretty social and likes to wrestle... But... A very sore looser lol
__________
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We had one as well when I was a kid. A new born Albino that fell(or ejected by momma?) from the din tree in our front yard.

Dad brought it in , mom fed it with an eyedropper and us kids named him Tippy. It was our house pet for many years. Tippy would go to the front door when it wanted out and come back to the front porch when it wanted back in.

His favorite place to stretch out was across the top of the back of the recliner. He would sleep there and if you were sitting in the recliner he would crawl down and lay around your neck.

Well Tippy got to be probably 4-5 yrs old and one evening was laying on the back of the recliner. We were all watching T.V. and my oldest brother came in, plopped down in the recliner and Tippy, which had never shown any aggression, jumped on brother head and ran circle's around his head biting chunks out of him. :eek:
Dad snatched Tippy and squashed his head like a grape...


...moral of the story:


You can't take a wild animal and totally domesticate it.

Getting back on the 'yote' topic, yotes being extremely bad around these parts, I shoot them whenever I get one in the cross hairs. As most of the neighbors do as well.
 
there is a doe frequenting my place, I have found fawn tracks in my driveway after recent rains, I have never seen that fawn but I am either seeing coyotes or hearing them on a daily basis...I freaking hate these wild mutt dogs when they are intent on eating my bucks 3 years before they're ready
 
Fawns are pretty well protected by their nature, but shoot coyotes anyway. My fawn would be on my lap and my black lab never even noticed it. Couldnt smell it or see it. Hard to believe but it's true.
 
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