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9.3x57 ....

It does seem that the canine predators are very competitive with each other and, the more I think about it, the feline predators act in much the same way. You're right; it's interesting that Wolves tolerate another canine predator on their turf. I guess the country is big enough and, for now, food plenty enough, that there is no need to waste the effort in tracking Coyotes. You would know much better than I would, but, what are the chances that the Coyotes came recently into the area and the wolves haven't had a chance to thin them out yet? When I first saw your photo above, the first thing I thought was that the wolves were tracking the recently passing Coyotes.

I would love to have you put me onto a wolf track one day. I have never seen one of those creatures in the wild before.

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I believe the availability of food is a large factor. L David Mech notes this as a key factor in his book, too.

He states that where elk and moose are the main prey, there is enough left for scavanging by coyotes, but...many coyotes are killed by wolves as they approach carcasses. In areas where deer are the main prey, wolves leave so little that scavanging is much less productive. This last bit is observably true. Wolves will eat a deer including the bones and hide, leaving tufts of fur or small pieces of bone or bits of hide only.

As for coyote moving in to an area, no, not here. Just the opposite. We had very large populations of coyotes before wolves moved in, and still do have large numbers of them. But we have only had wolf pack activity in my area for about 2-3 years, so there might not be time enough for wolves to deplete coyote numbers if that will occur. Mech states that in Lamar Valley, YNP, wolves killed 25-33% of the coyotes each winter. Most are said to have been killed and not eaten, but rather, left with deep, crushing bite marks similar to the killing bites wolves leave on some dogs. I always thought they did that with dogs because of the proximity to people and would have otherwise eaten them, and maybe that is to some degree true, but also it appears they do kill some canids without intent to eat.

It is easy to get on to wolf track. Much more difficult to SEE one. Of all the wolves I have seen {5 sightings, 8 animals} only one has been seen while hunting. Effort on my part has been huge, too. The terrain and ground cover here makes for nearly impossible "on-demand" sighting. Take that into consideration when you read of the enviro's claiming they want enough wolves to be able to view them. About the only way you can seek out and see a wolf in much of our country is to engage in feeding them. That is illegal baiting under the current Regime, and if no lethal take is made, it constitutes grossly negligent habituation of wolves. THAT activity begs the bringing on of wolf attacks, so much so we noted it in our county wolf plan and have put the populace on notice in the hope that if someone does it, and the activity results in another being attacked, not only will a game violation be the result {it is already illegal to feed game animals}, but also we hope it will be possible to make for a successful civil suit by the damaged party of the one habituating the wolf.

This latter will become more important in about 3 years when we have no more elk herds. Then we are going to be in it seriously unless massive aerial gunning and other take methods are allowed other than rifle shooting.

This State is nearing some form of sweeping civil unrest over this issue, so the future is troubling to say the least.

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