Bear Grease - Ep. 348: This Country Life - Kansas Coyote College 202

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Brent's back for part two of his conversation with Dr. Drew Ricketts. After his Kansas coyote hunt with decoy dogs, he sat down with Kansas State University professor and Kansas Extension Service Wildlife Control Specialist, Dr. Drew Ricketts, to correct Brent on some coyote facts. KSRE Wildlife Management on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoCUoT3Oi90S5zDnzgL34iAFins, Fur, and Feathers on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7HyaYenrLLztd5l9NseZ8hKSRE Wildlife Management: https://www.wildlife.k-state.edu/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ksrewildlifeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ksre_wildlife/ Shop This Country Life Merch Connect with Brent and MeatEater MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips Subscribe to the MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop This Country Life Merch Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to this country life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves. From coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living, I want you to stay a while as I share my experiences and life lessons. This country life is presented by Case Knives on Meat Eat Eater's Podcast Network, bringing you the best outdoor podcasts that Airways have to offer. All right, friends, grab a chair or drop that tailgate. I've got some stories to share.

Welcome to Part. two of this country life. It's kind of a different podcast about where I'm talking to somebody, and I'm here talking with Dr. Drew Ricketts from Kansas State University. He was on last week. It's going to be on this week because I am absolutely intrigued. I hope you are, too, about how coyotes affect the landscape. You know, deer hunting is big.

A lot of the folks that listen to my show, a large portion of them are in the southeast, and that deer hunting is king down here. And forever, you see a coyote, he's got to go because I've got to have, he's killing my deer. He's ruining everything that I've been working so hard with and manipulating my forest and planting food plots and doing everything I can to grow big and better deer. And I've got this thief out there that is stealing my boon and crockett and poping young deer away from me. But Dr. Drew Ricketts, Kansas State University, and we're here. and we're going to talk, we're going to get to the stuff that you've been waiting for. I hope, because I've been waiting for it, about how coyotes affect the white-tailed deer here on the landscape.

Doctor, we met last month on a hunt up here in Kansas with you, a decoy dog hunt with you and Jeff Ryder. That's a film that'll be coming out on next year in 2026. I learned some stuff while I was there. relearned some stuff I was there that I thought was, that wasn't correct. And that's what I want to get out there. And I think a lot of people will get some stuff out of this. Tell me why and how coyotes are affecting the landscape where we're hunting. Sure, sure.

So, you know, last time we briefly talked about their diet and just to reiterate that, you know, their diet in the eastern U.S. where they're a newcomer is quite different than it is here in the Great Plains where I'm at. So, you know, here they're mainly eating smaller stuff like rabbits and rodents. Out in the east, ungulates like deer are a much bigger part of their diet. And they can have an impact on deer populations, and that has led folks to think about coyotes the way that you're talking. You know, they're a villain. We've got to remove them from the landscape.

And, I mean, to be honest, when we've had armadillas come into Kansas, right? It's a natural range expansion. It's not something that people have done. But that's kind of how I think about armadillas. You know, they're not supposed to be here. They're tearing stuff up. They're new. Well, coyotes in your area are kind of that same sort of critter.

There have been a lot of studies that have looked at whether or not we can remove enough coyotes to have an impact on deer's. survival. And more specifically, fond survival. They do kill some adult deer. It's not super common for them too, but in the eastern U.S., it's more common for them too. More common because of more coyotes, more deer, or the terrain in which they're hunting them. More common because those coyotes have longer legs. They're bigger. They're more social in They're hunting strategies, so you might get multiple coyotes hunting together more often. And then the other things that it's correlated with that we don't think about a lot of times are as your average snow depth during the wintertime increases, then it becomes more and more likely that coyotes are going to be preying on larger deer.

Because they can, when you got deep snow, those coyotes can chase down a deer more easily and catch it and kill it. Let me tell you about something that I observed in central Arkansas, where I live, It was a spring evening, I believe. Yes, it was. It was right after turkey season. So this would have been in May. And I have got a brand new thermal. And I'm sitting out on my front porch.

I'm looking at a pasture, a field across in front of my house. And I see seven or eight deer out there feeding. And then I catch a glimpse of a coat. And then I see another one. And then I see another one. And you got a picture. There's seven or eight deer feeding. And they're on the west side of the park.

property, and coming from the east is three coyotes, and they separated. One went around one side of the herd of the deer. One went around the far side. One's on the far side. One's on the near side. And one's right in the middle. And I thought, holy cow, I'm fixing to see, I'm fixing to see it right here. This is National Geographic happening in my front yard, you know, from my front porch. The deer all looked at them and the coyotes walked right past them on both sides, the one in the middle, split right down the middle, and the deer never paid any attention to them, other than watching them walk away, and they were 50 yards trotting away, and the deer went right back to feed them. Yeah. It did not happen like I thought it was going to happen. And there were small

deer out there with them. Yeah. Why didn't it happen? Well, those, to the average coyote, an animal that big is not a prey item. It's more risky in terms of energy expended and the potential to get hurt, then the reward is. And so it's just, coyotes aren't naturally hunters of big prey. It's, it's more of an acquired thing. And I hesitate to say it's learned, but, you know, it's a process of getting up to gumption to try and kill something bigger, whether it's deer or livestock. It's learning how to do it in addition to that. And so there's lots of different things that come into it. I saw a deer on a decoy dog hunt one time with Jeff.

We did a fawn in distress call. And there was a doe deer that came in there. And about the same time that the coy did. And that I'm assuming now, you know, I'm not reading the deer's mind, but I'm assuming she's looking at that predator over there and thinking, he's causing the distress that she's hearing. Yeah. And that deer ran that coyote out of sight.

As far as I know, they're still running, and that was 10 years ago. Sure. Yeah. I mean, they are not a submissive prey at them. No. They're not just going to lay down and let them. They'll fight, and they're pretty ferocious themselves. A doe deer is, so it only makes sense that the coyotes are not just going to say,

well, what are you doing? Frank, I'm not doing nothing. Let's go kill a deer. All right. Well, let's go. It doesn't happen that way. No. No.

Now, with fawns, on the other hand, if a coyote comes across the fawn, it's going to catch it and kill it if it can. And, you know, those fawns, especially when they're brand new, their defense mechanism is to hold still even once something gets a hold of them. I mean, my decoer dog Annie, when we're out poking around, I always hate it when she finds a fawn because she'll grab a hold of it and try to bring it to me. Right. And it's just natural for them. that's their defense is just to hold still. And it's not, it's a good one to keep from getting detected. Right.

But once they're detected, they're pretty vulnerable. Right. Yeah. So there, I mean, obviously there is an impact. There, there, it depends on where you are. Right. If we go back to that, it depends. So if you're thinking about an impact in the southeast, I, like I said, those

studies absolutely show that there can be. and that's why those states have really focused on trying to figure out what to do about it. You know, thinking about the impact elsewhere in areas where we've had coyotes for a long time, one of the things that I find interesting is to look at the long-term data that we have in Kansas. Two sources of long-term data that we have in Kansas are deer vehicle collision data that comes from the, Department of Transportation, and then Wildlife and Parks gathers what they call the roadside index. So the roadside index is, as biologists are driving around, they write down how many live coyotes they see and how many roadkill coyotes they see. And so these are not, you can't

compare apples to apples, but the trends hold true, right? So when we look at these data, we can see that coyotes have about tripled in terms of their index from 1986 to 2023. which is when these data end that I've got right here. So they have increased fairly linearly during that time. If coyotes are controlling deer populations in Kansas, we should see that deer vehicle collisions go down as coyote numbers increase, and we don't see that. If you look at that deer vehicle collision data,

what it looks more like is deer populations have leveled off and stabilized, and they're probably hovering around carrying capacity. So that's one line of evidence that in Kansas, at least if we look at it at a broad state level, then coyotes probably aren't limiting the deer population. They prey on fawns, but they're not having enough of an impact to limit the population most likely. Another thing to look at is that meme that we've talked about a few times.

And it says it shows a picture, It's a pyramid of deer fonds with a coyote at the top. And it says during the coyote dending season, studies have found that female coyotes average killing 19 fons to feed their offspring. Keep doing the good work, fellas, you know. That's not true, is it? Well, you know, I saw that and I thought, man, that's some research that slipped through the cracks on me. Because I don't remember ever seeing it. And I don't even really know how you would do that.

Right. You know, to be able to do that study, it's not as simple as, people might think it would be. You would have to have camera callers on the coyotes because you would need to be able to distinguish between dead fawns that they found and funds that they killed. Right. And you would have to be able to keep track of it on an individual basis. Right. Right. So there. You're clouding this issue with facts, by the way. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but that's what I'm supposed to do. I'm with it. It is, and it's interesting to me, and I'm I hate to interrupt you on that. No, no, no, no, go ahead.

But it's interesting to me that, you know, that's a female coyote is getting blamed for that during denning season. What's a female coyote doing during denning season? Yeah, I mean, I alluded to that a little bit in that previous episode. But during that time right before she gives birth and then up until that not weaning time, that would be too long, but up until those pups or at least have a little bit of independence. she's got to be provisioned with all of her food. That means, Clay, provision to mean that somebody's bringing her groceries. She's not leaving.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's part of why that family structure, that family group structure is so important for coyotes. She's getting food from the male that she bred with. And she's also likely getting food from one to a few of what we're. we would call helpers. And helpers in that family group are part of the previous year's litter that rather than dispersing or being forced to disperse by the male and the female, decided to stay around. And their role is to help provide food to that female and the pups

until they're raised. And then they're going to go ahead and disperse that following fall when they're about a year and a half old, most of the time. And when we think about dispersal, we see male-bias dispersal in most mammals. So it's most likely that those helpers are going to be female pups from last year. They don't have to be. There's never a has-to-be, right? But it's more likely that they're going to be females than it is that they're going to be males. Right.

Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling

test, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out prime cuts at Phelps game calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. But as far as the meme goes, it's not 19 cots per, or 19 fons per coyote,

or female coyote during denning season. You did the numbers. Yeah. You did the numbers on the population of deer. You did the deer studies on the fawn, how many fons are born every year, and the number of coyotes on a, or estimated number of coyotes in a particular area.

Stop me when I say something wrong. And then you put those numbers together, and you came up with a more accurate depiction or number of what that impact is on coyotes to fawns. And that number is what? That number for Kansas, the maximum value that it could be is 3.24. Okay. Break that down for me. this is based on the deer surveys that wildlife and parks does every year.

Okay. And it's average number of does and fauns from that data across 10 years. So it's pretty good data. This is not published. It's not peer-reviewed for any scientists that might be listening on here. Okay. This is just numbers I went and got from wildlife and parks. So if we assume that there's about 700,000 deer in Kansas, which is what it says,

42% of those should be doze. Okay. A good round number to put on what we think we should see in terms of fauns produced is one and a half fawns per dough. Okay. So that gives us about 440,000 fauns produced in Kansas every year. No, sorry. Let me look at this again. So we've got 290,000 doze at one and a half fawns per dough.

gives us 441,000 fauns. Right. In that fall survey, 25% of what we see is fawns. Okay. Okay. So what that tells us is that 175,000 fawns, out of 440,000 fawns, made it from birth to fall. Okay. In an average year.

So the maximum number of funds that could be lost in an average year is 260,000. 66,000. A good round number to put on how many coyotes there are in Kansas is five coyotes per square mile. And we won't go into how I got those estimates, but I can tell you it's similar to how I got the deer values, right? So that gives us a little over 400,000 coyotes in Kansas at five coyotes per square mile and 82,000 square miles in Kansas. If we divide 266,000 fauns by 411,000 coyotes, That gives us 0.65 fawns per coyote, okay? And that's assuming that 100% of the fauns that died were killed by coyotes. Right. If we say, if we go back to that female thing and assume that there's one family group per square mile, which is probably too dense, but that's what we're going to assume to make the math simple, then the maximum number that a female could kill on average. across the state would be 3.24. If we adjust all this for the fact that in the study that I did, the highest predation we saw on fawns was 40 percent, then that gives us an average of 0.26

funds per coyote across the state and 1.3 if we look at it on a per family group basis. Right. So it's not near. I mean, that's 18. less coyotes that are being, I mean, fauns that are being killed. So that ratio is nowhere near the level of what it's purported and what social media is putting out there. And while they are, they are having an effect on the landscape, it's not near like what is led to believe. And that was something that I learned from talking to you back when we were hunting here. Sure, sure.

And remember, this is based on Kansas numbers. Right. In an area where deer are a more important food item for coyotes, it's going to be higher. But that meme, there's no way that somebody did the project that that meme is reporting. And that number, even if you're in an area where fawn predation by coyotes is important, it's not going to be that high. Right. Yeah. Because it's just not their natural, not the number one thing on their list to eat.

Well, no. And if you think about fawn density on the landscape, it's not very profitable for a coyote to, leave and decide that's the main thing that it's going to go looking for today. Sure, because he's going to walk by food looking for food. Absolutely. Yeah. And the reason, though, that those bigger prey items like fawns and lambs and calves are important during that spring time frame is because they need to bring that more food back to that female and potentially pups. Okay. That's going to lead us into what we were hunting up here and why we were getting the reactions that we were getting. Yeah. You talked about that.

helper that stayed. So you got the female that's nursing pups, you got the male that's there, and they mate for life until one of them dies. Is that correct? Probably. The best data that we have for that comes out of a study in Chicago. They're the only place, really, that's got enough mated pairs that they've tracked through time and has the DNA off of them. Okay. So that's a probability. Yeah. More than likely that they stay together for, to one of them dies. Yeah. And then one Once that one dies, it's going to get replaced. It's not like... They're not in mourning or anything like that.

Yeah, correct. But that helper, the one that stays there, male or female, those are the, that coyote, the helper coyote, is responsible in a large majority for feeding that nursing mother in the den, correct? Not just the helper is also the male. Okay, so both of them. Yep. You got both of them there. And those are the ones that are responding to the calls. Those are the ones that are territorial and aggressive.

And those are the coyotes, not all of them, but those are the ones that are probably causing the issues with livestock and the ones that are snatching fluffy out of the backyard. The more aggressive ones. Is that correct? In a study in California where they had radio-colored coyotes and they were tracking, sheep losses. One male was responsible for 71% of the sheep losses in a year. And the losses didn't stop until they killed that coyote. And then it stopped. Yep. So on a micro scale, you can make a difference. Calling in a coyote with a predator caller or a decoy dog were using it and taking it out of the herd. On a macro scale, it's not even going to be a blip on the radar. Yeah. And

you know, the studies that have looked at livestock losses and how to deal with livestock losses, the number of coyotes removed is not related to when losses stopped. You have to remove the individuals that are causing the problem. Because like we said last time, most coyotes aren't killing livestock. Right. And probably your average coyote is not killing fawns. They get them when they find them, but it's not the thing they're going looking for. And so when we do have problems develop with livestock, you deal with those individuals. And that's on the lethal control side of things. There's all kinds of non-lethal stuff that we can do that prevent the problems from ever even occurring sometimes in some situations. But from lethal control, it doesn't make

sense for a livestock producer to make coyote killing a job. Now, if it does make sense for a cattle producer or a seat producer to have a good friend that's good at killing coyotes, and having decoy dogs and being able to call coyotes in effectively this time of the year makes it more likely that that person is going to be better at solving livestock damage issues than someone who isn't able to target those more aggressive coyotes that are more aggressive because they have a litter of pups. Right. Yeah.

Okay. So, and that's why it's important that we hunt them. Yeah. And there's a reason. And some folks will say, you know, I've had people ask me about crow hunting and stuff. She said, you like to crow on? Oh, I love them. I'm like, man, you eat them?

Like, no, I don't eat crows. Well, you know, I was raised that if we don't eat it, we don't hunt it, which is fine. But tell me, give me the argument of why, because I'm not eating this coyote. The fur's down here in this part of the world are not, and especially in Arkansas, the further south you go, the worst the fur is or the less quality the fur is. And the fur market, which is, you know, at an all-time low just about, why is it going to go out and hunt? coyotes. Sure. Well, I mean, it goes back to what I was saying about being good at taking coyotes this time of the year, right? And I think, you know, one of the reasons to hunt is to become better at it. And when hunting with a decoy dog or hunting during during pup rearing season or whelping season, you know, that's very, very different than calling coyotes in the fall.

And so one's food related, one's territorial. Yeah. Right. Yep. For sure. And having that skill and honing that skill is the important reason to hunt at this time of the year. And from my point of view, the thing that a lot of people probably don't realize,

about most decoy dog hunters is that they're not taking most of the coyotes that they call in. For sure. You don't reward a dog for not decoying a coyote and doing what its job was. Well, take our hunt for existence without giving too much away. We called seven or eight coyotes off of probably ten stands, six or seven coyotes. And we walked out of there with, I'll put it this way. We could road in the cab of the truck with all the coach that we shot that day. And so it's not an automatic thing.

Sure, sure. So that part is more about honing a skill. If someone is trying to take enough coyotes that they can have an effect on fond survival, then late winter, probably actually early. spring. So March leading up to faunting season, so March through August or September, is when you should be taking coyotes. If you're in an area where they really are having an impact on deer numbers like the southeast or potentially the northeast U.S., then that is when you can get something done. Because we talked about those transients in the first episode. About half the coyotes in most

populations are transients. And those transients are just floating around waiting to take somebody's spot when they die. Okay. And so for every coyote you take, there's at least one transient waiting to fill that gap on the landscape. And so what we see most of the time is just really high immigration rates that are replacing those coyotes. So if you're killing them fall through the end of what we would typically think of as first season like February, those coyotes are going to be replaced before it's fawn eating time. So you're not really getting anything done there. So that's another potential reason to hunt them this time of the year. If you're doing it for that reason in the Great Plains or most of the southwest, you probably

got your priorities in the wrong place. If you want to manage for deer or pronghorn in those places, then you ought to be managing habitat for those species. And really, you can get the most bang for your buck everywhere by managing habitat. Because habitat management, improving fawning cover and improving food is predator management. We just don't think about it that way. Exactly. You think a predator management is putting a bullet in the cow or the nest predator or whatever, whatever it is that you're trying to raise, whether it's turkeys or quail or deer or whatever. But that, what you covered right there is absolutely more important than any number that you could shoot coming into a call. Yep, for sure.

You're absolutely going to have a larger effect on the landscape by doing that than you are out there with a rifle. Yeah. And it is fun. And I love doing it. How did you get into Decoy Doghunting? When I started this role as the Extension Wildlife Specialist and started helping people with coyote problems, I started driving the state so much that I was lonely. Not a sob story, but I just, you know, I was gone all the time. wanted to have a buddy with me.

Right. And I've got a friend that I went to high school with who's really into decoy dogs. And we started talking. He said, I need to get a dog in your hands, man. You do so much coyote hunting, especially at the time of the year when decoyed dogs are good, that, you know, it could be good for you. And you could be training dogs and all this kind of stuff. And so I got Annie, my current dog from him. I was supposed to be training her.

and about the time that we got her really good at decoying he said okay i think it's about time for training to be done i need her back i said man she's been traveling the country with me she's good with people um she's just a great dog she's also a good trapline dog man she finds coyotes cats and urine posts and all that kind of stuff for me um but yeah i mean just she's she's a companion She's a tool. She's a hunting partner. And she helps me be more effective at that part of my job. Keeping coyotes in check, keeping their population numbers in check is serving what greater purpose? Well, and that's, I don't want to say that it's not keeping the numbers in check because people typically aren't going to harvest enough coyotes to keep their numbers in check. Okay.

It's more about, if you're thinking about a greater purpose, yes, we are playing a role in wildlife management. And when we're taking out those problem coyotes, we are providing a service to livestock producers and that sort of thing, urban residents sometimes. But, you know, we are providing so much of a greater purpose as hunters and trappers by all of the things that we do. the money that we pump into local economies, the service that we provide through population regulation, where coyotes that, you know, depending on who you talk to, they may not hold that up, right? But, you know, the money that goes back into conservation of all species from what we spend on the calls, the camo, the guns, the ammunition, all that. That's the stuff that funds conservation. And then just being a part of that broader community.

And I think that, you know, the big thing that I sure hope people think about from this, I'm not telling you don't hunt coyotes if you like to hunt coyotes. If you're doing it for deer, then go manage deer, right? But if you like hunting coyotes, hunt coyotes because you like coyotes. They are an incredibly fun species to hunt and trap. They're smart. They're just, they're a cool species. Absolutely.

Yeah. And they are a formidable approach. because they're smart, they're wary, you know. Yeah, they're going to see lots of evidence of that here next year when this film comes out. They're very cool to interact with. Anything as we close out this thing, anything that you want to touch on before we close the show out, Doc. We talked a little bit about livestock damage, but I want to make sure that folks don't think I'm minimizing that. You know, and if we calves are the thing that people talks about the most,

coyotes probably have more of an impact on sheep and goats than anything. You know, predator losses can be 30 to 40 percent when we're looking at sheep and goats. Okay. Whereas. Yeah, whereas with cattle, if we're looking at Kansas, it's like, it's less than 5% of the calves that are lost in a given year are lost to predators. Coyotes are responsible for most of that. one of the things that you mentioned to me was wanting to correct something that you had said in a previous episode. And you said that 84% of the calf losses in Kansas were due to coyotes.

Yes. And the difference is, and that's one of those things about interpreting these big stats printouts, right? So about a little less than 5% of calf losses in Kansas reported by producers are due to predators. 84% of that 5% is due to coyotes. That's where I got that number. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, at 2015 market values, the calves lost, the cattle lost, and the cattle that were injured but not killed but had to be put down by predators in Kansas amounts to about $4 million in 2016 market values. Oh, wow.

I did a calculation last night, and I don't know how correct this is. But if we look at the market now versus then, it's about double. Wow. So somewhere between six and nine million is what that value is, even at only less than 5% of calves being lost to predators. And coyotes are responsible for about 84% of that. So you look at that 5% and you think, well, that's not near as bad as I was. And then you look at $9 million or possibly $9 million. And it's a pretty big effect.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Well, I learned some stuff. I relearn some stuff. I appreciate you being here. I hope the folks enjoyed this different kind of format. It's not just kind of a special thing that we did because I wanted to talk to Dr. Drew because I'm so interested in these coyotes.

And, you know, I'm an old dog learning new tricks here and learning new things, but I appreciate it. Drew, tell me where we can find folks that are listening can find other information or videos or where can they find you guys? Sure, sure. So we have a podcast that comes out every other week. The pawn specialist from K-State and I, or he's fishery specialist, is probably a more appropriate term. It's called Fens Fern Feathers.

It's everywhere you can get podcasts. It's also on our YouTube channel. KSRE Wildlife Management is our YouTube channel, and that, like I said, the podcast is there, but we got lots of other wildlife management content there. one of the only places you can find videos that are research-based about dealing with wildlife damage. There's a few other spots out there, but that's one of the main ones. Hey, as stewards of this creation that we're all blessed to have, I encourage you to look these up.

These little Reeva's going to put the links in the show notes on Spotify, and they'll put the links on the YouTube channel as well. Check them out. It's great stuff. Learn something. and let's all take care of these critters ourselves. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, sir. Thank you all for listening.

And until next week, this is Brent Reed. Signing off. Y'all be careful. First Lights Fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts.

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