Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, the coyote population is strong. We can often hear them at night howling, though sometimes it sounds more like “yipping”.
Consequently we prefer a big male dog like a Labrador Retriever. He constantly marks his territory near the house and along the trails we like to walk (I always take him with me when walking the trails). The coyotes stay on the other side of the creek that runs through the property. We hear them close by, but never see them.
People who insist on tiny designer type dogs never let them outside alone! It’s just like with our resident bears …. You just have to learn to live with them.
I live in NE TN. When I take my dog out, I carry. Not hesitating to plug a coyote.
Nope. I got tired of losing chickens, the neighbors lost cat after cat so I went to the pig slaughterhouse and bought a head. I threaded a steel cable through the natural openings and cinched it tight with a couple of cable clamps.
I found the perfect tree close to their preferred spot of entry and hung that head high enough they had to jump for it slightly, that way they would make noise alerting me to their presence, if I wasn’t watching.
After about 3 days that head was aging to coyote perfection when the first 5 showed up. I was waiting with my muffled .300 Blackout. Knocked 3 down before the others realized what was happening and ran off.
I ended up taking out 11 in less than 4 days. We didn’t have a coyote problem again. We did see one or two a year several years later but the dogs chased them away. They had gotten completely out of balance due to lack of predation and easy pickin’s like you mentioned.
GREAT PYRANEESE dogs will run down & kill coyotes.
I've never heard or seen coyotes in this patch of forest but it's logical that there are a few. Camping out of Robinsville, there seem to be a lot of coyote packs. They really party up a storm at night with yeps and howls.
Wild camping in the Tellico River area, I've heard bobcat numerous times at night and seen one once. Bobcat are real shy and avoid people. Also, I come across wild turkey occasionally. Owls serenade at night.
Several full time neighbors made a point to stop and say hello when I first moved here. Who's the new guy kind of thing. Most of them advised carrying a sidearm when outside because of black bears. I do. The bears around here don't really hibernate over the winter, just sleep a lot then go wandering around for a bit. ZERO trash is stored outside. Supposedly there is a wolf pack with a territory about 5 miles and several mountains away from the cabin.
I imagine that the only predators that actually live near me would be coyote and fox. Most of the residents have a large dog such as a German Shepard. This tends to keep coyotes away. There's a big fat raccoon on that visits routinely at night and a possum is around occasionally. Deer are numerous like jack rabbits since predators are not as common around me.
In primitive regions, the mountain folk are in the forest year round with their hunting dogs, usually hounds and beagles.