FirstFreedom
Moderator
Because the squirrels are abundant, but the rabbits are pretty sparse. There lot's of coyotes; just wondering if I have a reason to shoot them...
Not only that, but as the rabbit population increases, other predators like Red Tail or Harris Hawks will adapt and take up the slack. Their populations will then increase and they'll fill the niche left by the missing coyotes. Pretty neat system, overall.For the most part...yes, for a while. When you remove the alfa predator, the prey will generally experience a population growth, sometimes a boom. However, over time (often many years) the prey will hit the carrying capacity of the land and will decline before stabilizing. Generally what happens is it will go in waves of growth coyote populations high- rabbit populations low...coyotes die off or move off...rabbit population grows...coyotes return rabbit population dwindels...and on and on
FirstFreedom said:I just find it odd how few rabbits I see. Maybe 1 per every 3 days walking around in the woods. Makes me think the coyotes are thriving a tad too much. I do see a couple dozen or so squirrels per day, and about 4 armadillos per day at least....