Is hunting actually boosting the coyote population in New England?
BOSTON -- Coyotes are seemingly everywhere in New England. Some people are hunting them to reduce the populations, but a new study from the University of New Hampshire suggests this may backfire.
Hunting can bring more coyotes
"It's called a compensatory response. It has to do with when there's fewer competitors of your own species around, the females can increase their breeding output," Remington Moll, an assistant professor at UNH, told WBZ-TV.
Moll worked on the three-year study. He said hunting may reduce populations in the short term, but the lack of animals can also push more to migrate in to fill the gap.
"Sometimes, I think sharpshooting could be appropriate if there are problem individual coyotes that need to be removed, that's very reasonable," said Moll.
Coyotes and trash
If hunting doesn't work, what does? MassWildlife says it comes down to resolving our trash problems.
"If the public did that, much of the conflict they experience with wildlife would disappear," said Dave Wattles, a biologist with MassWildlife. "You've got to do a lot of work in order to obtain that food, or you can go into someone's backyard and you can empty their bird feeder that they're gonna fill for you the very next day."
Wattles says humans are basically training coyotes to feed in their neighborhoods instead of in the wild.
"Studies have shown that coyotes exist in higher densities in suburban and urban areas than they do in entirely natural areas. It's counterintuitive to how we think of wildlife," he told WBZ.
Moll also suggests large predators may reduce populations. These are animals like bears, pumas, or wolves.
"They compete with them. They could kill them, etcetera. And we found that was true, but it depended on the local conditions. It depended on the habitat," said Moll.
