I had a pit in my stomach when I first saw the photo. I was ok with the bobcat behind my house. I loved having the fox around. But that coyote was an unwelcomed sight. To make matters worse, it was walking past my camera every night and every morning. Sometimes even during daylight hours. What is it about coyotes that causes us to have such polarizing gut reactions?

I have hunted coyotes and I have seen them in the woods while I have been deer hunting. There are few things more unnerving than walking into your stand in the dark and hearing a coyote howl close by. The coyote on my trail camera was just too close to my house and looked too comfortable coming and going.

I am not the only one who feels like this. The fur bearer management plan through IF&W, highlights the attitudes of Mainers pointing out that, “people are less tolerant of coyotes than they are of any other furbearer species, commonly viewing them as dangerous or a nuisance. When asked to rate the environmental benefit of various species on a scale of 0 (no value) to 10 (very beneficial), Maine residents, landowners, hunters and trappers all gave coyotes the lowest value of any furbearer.”

The plan also mentions how tolerant we are for coyotes. Hint: we are not. “More residents enjoyed having fox around their home, whereas coyotes tended to be viewed as dangerous or a nuisance. More than a third of residents experienced conflicts with wildlife in the past two years, with raccoon, skunk, fox, and coyote being the most conflict-prone furbearer species.”

I do not want coyotes around but the more I thought about it, the more I questioned my gut reaction. Maybe it is ok to have coyotes around if it means a few less deer. It seems like there is at least one new road-kill deer on my route to work every week. There are a lot of deer around and during this time of year when fawns are being born and following mom around the woods, maybe predation could help the population a bit.

Hunters are not doing a great job of harvesting does. We are helping but we are not prioritizing filling those doe tags as quickly as we are with our buck tags.

I talked with Nathan Bieber, IF&W’s deer biologist about the impact in doe harvest that the department has seen since hunters were allowed to kill a doe AND buck instead of one or the other. In 2022, the goal of 13,807 does was slightly surpassed with 13,883 does tagged. Since then, the goal has increased to 15,720 in 2023 and 16,532 in 2024 but hunters only tagged 10,849 in 2023 and 11,763 in 2024.

But, since the program started, statewide doe harvests have significantly increased. The average adult doe harvest over the past three years (2022-2024) has been 12,165 does per year. Prior to this, the average was 8,794 from 2019-2021 and 6,675 from 2016-2018.

In the long run, the number of does is dropping but in the short term, maybe my neighborhood coyote will help prevent the population from growing more and I can get a doe tag and do my part. There are so many pieces to think about when looking at the social and biological carrying capacities for deer and coyotes. We get excited when we see a new fawn on our trail cameras but have a pit in our stomachs if we see a coyote with pups. I can’t guarantee that I won’t shoot a coyote if I see one while I am out in the woods but for right now, it’s safe.