Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Pa Coyote taken during Pa Deer Season:

Taken by a friend this past Deer season. Big boy he was....

Good work. The best 'yote is a dead 'yote.

Any idea as to weight?

He told me a touch below 60.

That is big.

Not surprised.

Not terribly uncommon in these parts. My buddy from my gun club shoots coyotes on the club property and last year nailed down a 49 lb FEMALE.

With the size of that thing and those big feet you can see why the biologists say there are some wolf genes mixed in with the northeastern coyotes.

Ross,

http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_660215.html#axzz3RUw8tyMh

Eastern coyotes have a touch of wolf in them
TribLIVE Sports Videos
Freeze Frame Gallery
Top Sports Pics - Feb. 11, 2015
Wild Outdoors Blog

Elk licenses auctioned off for big money

February 10, 2015
Hunters with money to spend and a vision of a trophy in mind spend big. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's "hunter rendezvous ...

By Bob Frye
Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010


It usually takes a special kind of coyote to win the annual hunt put on by the Mosquito Creek Sportsmen's Association.

Specifically, a male, and a very big one at that.

"The top prize almost always goes to whoever can bring in the heaviest male," said Cathy Tarner, who helps promote the hunt — the state's oldest and by far its largest — for the club, which is located in Frenchville, Clearfield County.

In the five hunts held from 2005-09, 13 of the 15 heaviest coyotes weighed in were males. The four biggest — three of them males — topped 50 pounds each.

To put that in perspective, consider that coyotes — a species that developed on the Great Plains — average 20-35 pounds in Nebraska and 25-35 in Kansas, according to the wildlife agencies in those states.

Pennsylvania is able to produce animals so much larger because of genetics.

Scientists have long suspected that the Eastern coyote found in Pennsylvania and elsewhere might actually be a hybrid, the result of interbreeding with wolves. A study published this fall — which examined the DNA and skulls of nearly 700 coyotes from New York and Pennsylvania, some from the Mosquito Creek hunt — confirms that is true.

"All of these animals have some wolf in them," said Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum and lead investigator on the project.

"Our research did not allow us to say whether the animals are 25 percent wolf or 75 percent of whatever. But what we can say is that they are mostly coyote with some wolf definitely mixed in."

That hybridization likely first began half a century ago, Kays said, and involved Great Lakes wolves and coyotes. Their offspring migrated from Ontario south across the St. Lawrence River and into New York, he said.

They first appeared in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, according to Pennsylvania Game Commission records, with the first "Easter coyote" killed in the state falling in Tioga County in 1940.

They've thrived ever since, especially lately. No one can say with any degree of certainty how many coyotes the state has, said Matt Lovallo, the chief furbearer biologist for the Game Commission. But a population of 50,000 to 60,000 spread across every county in the state might be a good guess, he said.

Their numbers are likely still climbing in the southwestern and southeastern corners of the state, he added. The coyote's adaptability is part of the reason.

"A lot of the success of the Eastern coyote can be attributed to the fact that it's omnivorous," Lovallo said. "They eat not only what many people might consider prey species, but also all kinds of hard and soft mast, like nuts and berries and autumn olive, and, in suburban areas, even dog food and garbage. They're kind of unique among forest predators in that they can switch food sources pretty quickly."

Some hunters believe coyotes kill lots of whitetails, too — enough to depress deer populations.

The Eastern coyote's larger size and larger skulls equipped with more powerful jaws certainly make them capable of killing deer, and they do take their share, especially fawns in spring, Kays said. But they don't kill an inordinate number, he said.

"I don't think we have any evidence that coyotes are depredating deer to any significant level," Lovallo agreed.

Whether you love them or hate them, though — and they are a polarizing species — Eastern coyotes are amazing, Kays said.

"My take on this is that this is an animal that sort of evolved into a creature with enough wolf in it to fill a niche as a large predator, but with enough coyote still in there to deal with people," he said. "They just seem really adaptive, which has helped them survive better."

'Pure' coyotes in area

Pennsylvania is in the unique position of getting its coyotes from two different directions, according to Roland Kays.

Most of the state's coyotes are wolf-coyote hybrids that can trace their lineage to animals that migrated south from Ontario and New York, he said. But there is a much smaller group of genetically distinct, more "pure" coyotes running around, too, in the counties on the extreme western edge of the state. They may have a bit of dog DNA, but otherwise are the offspring of coyotes moving east from places like Ohio, he added.

It remains to be seen how the two populations will co-exist.

"It will be interesting over time to see if these two just kind of mix it up," he said.

Thanks for the interesting and informative article.

That being said, I question the angle that comparing "average" animals from one state to trophy sized animals from another state does anything to establish a significant difference in the animal size between the 2 populations. There may be differences and that wouldn't surprise me, but the comparison in the article does nothing to to establish that fact.

But don't get me wrong, I like the article and found it interesting, just on that one point I think the conclusion may be a little under cooked.

On the subject of variations in coyote populations, I have seen 2 dead melanistic coyotes here in western North Carolina in the last couple years, one shot and the other road killed.

Agree. On out of State Coyotes he references average. I have run into only a few Pa Coyotes personally, but from appearance they would be typical in size to the other States he mentioned.

Most that I know of that have been shot or trapped here in Pa were in the 30 pound-plus/minus a little-bracket.

If it happened here, it also seems likely that Wolves have hit on Coyotes from Western locations at sometime in the past. Although I have read that the Pa mix originated with the "Red Wolf." How the Red Wolf-or even if there is such a species-fits into the category of Wolves I don't know.

Addition: Just looked it up and there is one classified as the Red Wolf. Canis rufus.

While from a Coyote/Wolf friendly bunch, the research is still solid and sheds a little light on the "eastern coyote".

http://www.easterncoyoteresearch.com/downloads/CoywolfTaxonomy&BodyMassCFN2013.pdf

Thats a big-un. Nice coyote.

Didn't read it all, but his conclusion of limiting or stopping the killing of Coyotes in the East in order to preserve the remaining Eastern Wolf genetics, wouldn't go over all that well here in Pa.

Never said the premise of the paper was worth a crap. The genetic research on the eastern dog/canid, though, is quite interesting.

Yes. Amazing the stuff that goes on out there when time has the opportunity to shuffle the cards.

Yep, very true, and quite interesting that nature abhors a vacuum and will find some way to fill an empty niche.

About 10 years ago, a buddies' son shot one at my Dad's farm near DuBois during deer season. They put it on the scales in the barn, it weighed 47 pounds.

Dale

Dale,

This one came from fairly close to your home base: Brothers Valley Township.

I generally get one or two in June using a fawn distress call. Best has been the Quehanna.