Trapping Coyotes

This week we’re with Levi Carlock and Bill Gray the ADWFF District Supervisor Biologist and they’re preforming a fawn recruitment study with Auburn University. They’re trapping one of two sections of a large piece of land to study not only the effects of intensive predator trapping, but also the effects of good habitat and cover.

Through a brief camera survey, Levi was able to roughly identify the number of coyotes on each section of property. He identified the area with the highest density of coyotes and proceeded to set his traps. Since it’s summer, most of the traps were set near den sites, foraging areas, or water. This time of year, coyotes don’t travel far so locating their core areas is vital to success.

Through this predator removal, the survival of fawns is greatly increased, but this is only a short term fix. Predator removal is something that needs to be continued in order to stay on top of predator numbers. Levi successfully removed 15 coyotes from the section of property that was trapped. Deer numbers should improve in the short term and research into how habitat helps in regards to improving deer numbers.