I think you may need to just understand that we as a group are harrassed and berated on a regular basis. WE are cautious and weary of new people and questions and comments like you raise are valid, but make us wonder who is actually asking the question.
The AZ Game and Fish Biologist, I read the article, you can search for it.
Anyways, what they found is that of the groups that have an impact on numbers of wildlife, Hunting is very low.. Actaully if you have driven up and down the freeways, you will see more impact along the side of the road than hunters killing has.
Most puppies don't make it the first year, and that has nothing to do with hunters, there just isn't enough hunting going on.
It was explained that a hunter is the lowest impact, then foot hold trappers, and then long line snare trappers have the most imapact as far as humans hunting impact, and even that isn't that much..
What anti's don't understand is that Federal Wildlife agents do a lot more to the population than hunters do.. They use things that we can't and do things that hunters are just not allowed to.
The AZ Game and Fish flies around in a plan and shoots them flat out right from the plane with a shotgun.
As was said before, if there is plenty of food, they will breed more (meaning have more pups because food is abundant) if no food, they move and look for it, and will have less. That is independant of hunters. As i said, there are many things that kill Pups, and hunters are not even close to the top of that list.
It has also been studied that to reduce a population of Coyotes in an area you have to kill 70% of the population in that area for 5 years to have an impact.. That just doesn't happen without a lot of effort. And you have to continue to keep up that effort to maintain a reduction.
We hunt, I do it because i enjoy it, it's a challenge, and i harvest the fur and sell that for the ones that are worth it. But, i know that in the grand scheme of things i don't make an impact. Anti's have a need to feel as though they are "trying" to do something and haven't come to terms with the fact that they are insignificant and don't make a differnce. They also have never seen what happens and how Mother nature manages a population. Usually disease, starvation, or worse (IMO) mange.. Perosnally I would much rather have been shot vs freeze to death slowly because of Mange.
What is a better question to the Anti's is why are they trying to tell me what to do, and what qualifies them as being more moral or eithical about what they are doing?
I saw on facebook how nasty and lying they were. Threatening to shoot or kill people. The bottom line is that there are a lot of studies and care going into maintaining ballance for all of the animals. Managing predators, especially at certain times of year, gives thier pray animals a chance for them to reproduce. I would ask them what they are doing to protect the Antelope so they don't have a 70% mortality rate for the new Fawns this year? Are they standing around with a sign? More hashtag activism that in the end makes them feel good, but doesn't actually do anything. Like it or not the coyotes are out there killing and do so effectively on lots of other animals is what Coyotes are doing to them, it's not just mice and bunnies... What about those animals? If they want to claim they are protecting the animals they have to understand there is more to is than just the ones that are being killed that they support or want to defend.