When I was growing up in the 1960's, groundhog hunting was a big thing here. People would ride the roads looking for them, and I was one of those hunters. My cousin would drive, and I'd shoot them with a scoped 22 rifle. They seemed to be everywhere. Later on, I had a 243 and killed a bunch with it. Back then, you could find them anywhere, especially in and around a soybean field. Groundhogs could easily eat up several acres of beans in a large field.
While I don't know if the coyotes had anything to with it, it seems to be that about the time we began to see coyotes here in numbers, we saw a decline in groundhogs. The deer now do far more damage to soybeans than the groundhogs ever did. The groundhog is now seen more in wooded areas and in old buildings. As a matter of fact, most I kill anymore are in and around my old barns and outbuildings. I will say this though, in recent years I'm seeing more sign that they are moving back into soybean fields, as I see their dens in the fields after they are harvested. I'm also seeing a decrease in the number of coyotes here, so you can connect the dots if you want to.
