Territoriality and Breeding Status of Coyotes Relative to Sheep Predation

Coyote (Car1i.s1ntran.s)depredation is a chronic problem for sheep producers in the western United States. Due to increasingly localized control efforts, behaxior of individual coyotes in sheep-ranching entironments is becoming a more important consideration. We radiotracked 14 coyotes on a year-round sheep-ranching facility in north-coastal California during September 1993-December 1995. Breeding coyote pairs nsed mutually exclusive territories (maximum overlap between 90% adaptive kernel home ranges = 4%).Nonbreeding coyotes xvere transient or varied in their degree of fidelity to putative natal territories but generally avoided cores of nullnatal territories. Breeding coyotes whose territories contained sheep were the principal predators of sheep. In the 1994 lambing period (1Jan-31 May), radiotelemetry indicated that 1 breeding inale was responsible for 71% of 6Ei kills. In the 1995 lanrbing period, 4 breeding pairs were strongly implicated in 92% of 48 kills and were suspected of 85% of 26 additional kills; lionbreeders were not associated with sheep depredation. Depredation was reduced only when territorial breeders known to hl1 sheep were removed. These results suggest the need for management to target breeding adults in the immediate vicinity of depredation. Efforts to remove individuals > I territory-xcidth away from problem sites are ~~nlikely to reduce depredation and may eeaacerbate the problem by creating vacancies for ne\r breeders that might kill sheep. JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 63(2):593-605