Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Coyote predation on pheasants

Any knowledge here as to how bad coyotes are on the pheasant population.
I have some land in Ks that is being trapped. Lots of coyotes being caught.

They are hell on quail, also. Lots of country in western part of central Texas where angora goats are in sheep fencing are over run with quail in good moisture years where coyote snares are used at fence crossings while a couple miles away cattle ranches with barbed wire will only have a smattering of quail in the same weather and forage conditions.

Not near as hard on them as all the hawks and eagles are.

We used to have a lot of pheasants on the farm in Western Colorado. I blame a lot of it on the soaring raccoon problem. I trap around 50 a year but it doesn’t seem to dent the population. Nothing that nests on the ground is safe from them.

This^^^ and they are the reason for the prairie chicken and sage grouse decline. Tall electric towers let's them see ground birds a mile away.

Hell, nothing that nests in trees are, either.....

If a coyote finds a clutch of young pheasants that can't fly yet, it'll get them all.

100 percent right.

The foxes and coyotes get too bad a rap for this.

Mostly rodents.

Same if a bobcat or couple of barn owls find a covey. The cat will stay until none are left according to a warden I talked to.

I know for a fact the barn owls will return every evening until all are gone. Kites and Merlin's and Harriers are probably the worst on them. But Swainsons and even kestrels take their toll.

We have a big broadwing hawk with dark gray mottled under wings that work them over to.

There was a reason many travelled to Kittyhawk years ago to shoot the migrating sharks of the sky.

The Cornell Ornithology website lays most of the blame for nest losses on foxes, weasels and mink. Raptor predation becoming the major source of mortality in winter.

Apparently territorial male ring necks harass and drive out prairie chickens during the breeding season.

Well....the stomach contents of foxes and coyotes in Montana lay the blame on raptors.

Problem is habitat, coyotes, foxes, feral cats, bob cats, racoon, possums, hawks, eagles, squirrels, turkeys, bears, deer, and even snakes. Damn hogs too.

Couldn't be a more bias source on earth than Cornell when it comes to favoring birds.

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/

I've resented them since they bought out the Thayer's Birds Of North America software and turned it into trash..

Bobcats too - read a while back fish&game somewhere[?] followed a collared bobcat that followed a mother turkey and poults unable to fly yet . Bobcat killed every baby turkey and the mother turkey too .

Dale there's some good stuff on youtube about 'nest predators' coyote fox bobcat coon skunk possum all meander around looking for nest to rob .
It takes an extensive amount of work to curtail them then others move in to fill the void .
That's why i shoot every one of them every chance i get .



Fact ..

Back in the 70's when i was kid - farmers shot every hawk they saw and we never ran out of hawks like the lefties stories go .

I wanna say that the biggest factors in NW Illinois were 3-fold.

First and foremost was loss of cover as farms cleaned up and enhanced production.

Secondly, the various raptors have exploded in numbers and varieties seen.

And turkeys... The reintroduction of turkeys has been successful beyond dreams. Every bit of cover they own. Where they flourish, pheasant decline.

Do turkeys run pheasants off ?

The experts say no. But almost any bird will eat another birds eggs.

It's just my observation that pheasant declined drastically in my area while turkeys are almost as populous as pheasant once were.

Thanks !

Hey, I put out stuff for general info.....

http://animalrange.montana.edu/documents/extension/ringneckedpheasant.pdf

Ya got a source on them stomache contents?