“Bi-Monthly Article” RESPONSES OF CAPTIVE COYOTES TO CHEMICAL ATTRACTANTS

RESPONSES OF CAPTIVE COYOTES TO CHEMICAL ATTRACTANTS

This article discusses research on the development of chemical coyote attractants, specifically focusing attractants that will stimulate coyotes to pull M-44s (a type of trap) during the warm-weather months. The study was conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the University of California, and it aims to test and evaluate the effectiveness of new chemical coyote attractants on captive coyotes and develop new attractants for summer use on M-44s. The study was conducted from January 1988 to January 1990 at the USDA's Predator Research facility in Utah. A group of 36 coyotes were screened to determine their suitability as test animals and were exposed to 9 chemical attractants during 3 different seasons: breeding, whelping/pup-rearing or summer, and dispersal. The article states that the results of this study will help to extend the seasonal use of M-44s and improve their efficacy.

The results of the study showed that of the 9 attractants tested throughout the year, the overall attractiveness of W-U and FAS were nearly identical. FAS ranked slightly higher than W-U in 2 of the 3 seasons. CFA, TMAD and artificial smoked fish also produced relatively high response times. A high percentage of all behavioral responses to attractants was spent in rub-rolling activity, which appeared to be an index to the attractiveness of a particular attractant. When all 35 attractants were evaluated for their potential use with traps and M-44s during the summer or whelping/pup-rearing season, FAS and W-U ranked the highest with mean response times of 424.7 and 394.4, respectively. These 2 attractants had nearly twice the mean response times as the next closest attractant and evoked high responses for lick-chew-bite and pull behavior in the summer and during other seasons, thus demonstrating their potential as M-44 attractants. The study also found that individual coyote preference may change both daily and seasonally and there was no strong relationship between coyote sex and specific attractants.

The article concludes that sample sizes across the large number of attractants were small, but sufficient to give indications of coyote preferences for certain attractants. The authors suggest that field trials in representative habitats and geographic areas are needed to determine how closely the behavior of wild coyotes corresponds to that observed in captive coyotes. They also suggest that measuring quantitative responses to attractants by wild, free-roaming coyotes is difficult, but that attractants that generate strong lick-chew-bite and pull responses can be tested on M-44s and scent stations and actual trap sets could be used to validate their attractiveness in the field. The article also states that a variety of attractants are necessary to accommodate the individual preferences of coyotes over different areas during different times of the year, and that future research should focus on determining the optimum concentrations of known attractants required to elicit responses needed to activate control devices and identifying more coyote-specific attractants, including possible coyote pheromones to reduce the accidental capture or death of nontarget species.