are predators smart?

[bigben]

I was sitting here   um well really just pondering.  I have not really been posting much on any of the hunting boards.  but I normally check in a few times a day if it stops at that.  but on one of the pa boards I read one day where someone claims a coyote will remember your call and scent and then the next week or so they say that they respond to a call and only use their senses well.  so which one is it?  I am curious as to what some of the guys here think.  no matter where you live a coyote is a fox is a bobcat.  the question is are predators smart?  can they reason?  do we give them more credit then they deserve as far as smarts are concerned?  or is this an excuse for why we do not kill many in a year?  that they are too smart to kill.  I have a thought on it but I want to hear what others think.  or do I have too much time on my hands to think of such nonsense and should spend more time scouting?

[pitw]

I would say they are smart myself.  Just as a dog can be trained by sounds so to can a predator.  If you call up a coyote and get busted it is going to put that sound in his danger category list.  I'm not saying you won't be able to call him again just that it is going to be more wary than an uncalled yote.  When you watch a pack chasing down a deer it is easy to see that they have reasoning power in the way they take turns in tiring out the prey.

[browning204]

I'll play but these are only my guesses. I think that they are not smart, cannot reason and that person on the PA. board is wrong. If they are "smart" then no coyotes would ever be shot, not even in Texas!. I think that they grow up in an enviromnment and learn to use it to their advantage out of will to survive. I think that we don't kill more coyotes because we may not understand how they think and use their "skills" against them.

Example: My dog, goes out side on a run tied to the back porch. He knows at what point he needs to stop or get choked. He has learned this out of repetition. Now every time he sees a squirell, Deer or something he wants to chase, he totally forgets and runs until he pretty much gets flipped backwards by that same leash he used 10 times a day, everyday.

Now if a coyote makes you he might remember for a bit that you were there and could mean danger, but when the time comes when he is into your calling or decoy, I am willing to bet that the "smart" or ( I love this term) "educated" coyote will lose his mind and walk right into a trap! So much for structuring logic or thinking something through.

Those are my stabs at it.

[BlueDuck]

I think they are very smart, but I doubt they reason.  They are just very good at what they do and thats survive.  They are paranoid and back it up with excellent hearing, eye sight and sense of smell.   When they catch your wind, they don't hang around to study it much.   No matter how inviting that screaming rabbit was, if he gets your scent, he's leaving right now....

[Okanagan]

Endless topic because it is endlessly fascinating.

I'm not sure what to call it but coyotes are capable of learning ( or being conditioned) from experience, just like other canines such as dogs. Does that make them educated?   I wouldn't argue with anyone about it but I have experienced having a coyote appear to learn to avoid calls.  I'm sure the right new call and set up would have killed him but he was far more wary than most of his species.   My first encounter with him he raced to within 18 inches of a call. During a calling session in the same spot with the same call a week later, a coyote circled and deposited a pile of droppings in the boot track of the only person present both times.  Same coyote?   No proof.

Over the next two years I had two more encounters with what looked like the same coyote that came to within 18 inches, and a third probable encounter.  He was large and had a distinctive color.   He was definitely call shy way more than the abundant coyotes he lived among.  I got to watch him on one of those occasions from the first moment he heard a call sound, because I happened to spot him lying under a bush when he did not see me.   I tried a number of call sounds and techniques and he was wary of them all, from the first moment of a human generated sound.  I still wonder if he was conditioned to avoid real rabbit and rodent sounds!  It would be hilarious if the coyote dropped a rabbit and ran if it screamed when he bit it.

Coyote curiosity and play indicates a high level of animal intelligence to me, though I do not think that they reason, but rather act on species programmed intuition/instinct.

Primarily however, coyotes have terrific survival instincts.  One of the most successful of those is their instant action and reaction at critical times to the info their superb senses pick up.  Many animals hesitate when an unknown or danger factor pops up but a high percentage of coyotes hit instant afterburner escape.  With similar instincts, IMO turkeys are one of the stupidest creatures on planet earth, but their senses and instincts make them a difficult quarry.

Cats and grey foxes are very different from coyotes.  Foxes have similar preferences (instincts) but grays are way less wary.  Red foxes are similar to coyotes in my limited experience. Whether from low intelligence or some other factor, cats seem to come to a call, even the same call, over and over.  A researcher with a radio collared cougar confirmed that for me.  Their instincts are programmed differently.  They do not seem to learn, (or be conditioned to avoid calls, etc. take your pick).  If they do learn or become conditioned to avoid calls, it's not as obvious as coyotes.

Ditto to browning204's comment about using the animal's "skills" against him.  As I've written before:  animals have way better senses and instincts than humans, but we are smarter.  In calling, we use our smarts to turn the animal's senses and instincts against him.

[LBLDOG]

I think they are smart thats why they are called a Predator, they use caution and come in and scent check what they are hearing before being on attack mode. I seen one one time walking casual across a 4 lane and wait in the middle and watch cars pass before crossing the road. They are hard to kill I think because they use the terrain to their advantage making them hard to see sometimes while they are hiding waiting to bust YOU on your scent or movement!

[alscalls]

I think coyotes are individuals.....I only say that because of my experiences hunting as well as raising dogs.
I cant help but remember the ole I threw the ball trick in the yard for my dogs then the next time I would not throw it but pretend I did to see which ones would catch on first.... Some would go for the ball every time no matter what.....Some would go part way then stop....some would never fall for that again.
If you yell at or get physical with a dog for getting on your couch? Some will never forget it and learn that if I do that I will get a bad response......some are hard headed and will relentlessly fight for the right to be there yet they do remember ......you can tell they know whats coming.
Some coyotes I have seen will run hard into my decoys while some run from them and yet I have seen others come slow watching to see if they move or something while others will just sit and wait.
I have noticed if I put a teddy bear with no stuffing the color of a fawn in front of my decoy and they see it They are more cautious.....If I hang it in the coyote decoys mouth they run right for it many times.
This reminds me of watching my dogs in the yard again......if a dominant dog has something in front of him and he is standing over it.....this shows that dominance.....if he has it in his mouth he wants to move it or hurry and eat it before another takes it...This shows he is afraid.
Are they smart.....Yes in my opinion
Smarter than you?? Depends on the coyote and what we have taught him about us. M2C
I hope this makes sense as this is how I try and think of it.
Our job is to get the coyote to go for the pretend ball and distract him long enough for the shot and it is possible no matter what,.......... cause it has been done.

[browning204]

Predator : one that preys, destroys, or devours.

The word predator has nothing to do with smarts!

[FinsnFur]

I think coyotes are individuals.

I'm going with that.

I kinda disagree with Browning in regards to the dog flipping himself when he see's a squirrel.
That's just one dog and not every dog will do that. Actually more dogs then not, if tied up long enough will know where the end of the run is and stop out of instinct created by repetition.

[alscalls]

Predator : one that preys, destroys, or devours.

The word predator has nothing to do with smarts!

Predator .............Just a word we made up.

[Tikaani]

I think trying to base what a predator does in the wild by how a dog reacts is a feasible comparison.  Our dogs are taught almost everything they know on a rewards or punishment system, fetch the stick and you get a bone, crap in the house you get your nose rubbed in it. They live with us on a daily bases a far cry from an animal in the wild, however predators such as wolves and coyotes learn from their own sets of rewards and mistakes.  The difference is a mistake in the wild will result in hunger or death.  

I have seen two wolves ambush a herd of caribou, the drive to kill and eat was instinctive, the method in which they did it was learned behavior, taught to them by the pack as pups and became instinctive.

I agree animals have more acute senses, but we are smarter and have the ability to use there instincts against them.  I think I told this to someone on this site before, had a wolf that walked down my trail about every third week in an area that was difficult to put out a set, I hung some orange trail tape out, the wolf did not like it, it was out of place, he detoured the trail and walked along side it where a few snares I placed got him.  Circumstances also dictate they’re behavior, if they are hungry and food is short, I am sure they betray their instincts.  Just my thoughts on a very interesting topic, thanks Ben.

Hunt hard, Die tired
John

[Jimmie in Ky]

Smart , no. Do they remember and learn how to respond yes. Track a coyotre a while and you learn a few things about them. The way they move is taught generation after generation. Adults teach what they were taught in order to survive.

If you check old records of areas that were poisoned continuosly you will see that after a few years the coyote kill dropped and the population grew. That is also why in some areas they do not feed on carion. They learned to avoid areas with dead coyotes. You can even see this reaction in our eastern animals if you hang a coyote carcass up. These behaviors are taught generation after generation , just because that is what they learned from their parents. And today government adc trappers use baits instead of carcasses.

You will find pups in one area that behave much diferent than pups in another. That is because the adults taught them a diferent way to react. This is why we do not over hunt an area. Too many mistakes helps them learn to avoid us. The survivors will teach the habits nescescary to survive to the young. Jimmie

[nastygunz]

Pavlov's experiment

The original and most famous example of classical conditioning involved the salivary conditioning of Pavlov's dogs. During his research on the physiology of digestion in dogs, Pavlov noticed that, rather than simply salivating in the presence of meat powder (an innate response to food that he called the unconditioned response), the dogs began to salivate in the presence of the lab technician who normally fed them. Pavlov called these psychic secretions. From this observation he predicted that, if a particular stimulus in the dog’s surroundings were present when the dog was presented with meat powder, then this stimulus would become associated with food and cause salivation on its own. In his initial experiment, Pavlov used a metronome to call the dogs to their food and, after a few repetitions, the dogs started to salivate in response to the metronome. Thus, a neutral stimulus (metronome) became a conditioned stimulus (CS) as a result of consistent pairing with the unconditioned stimulus (US - meat powder in this example). Pavlov referred to this learned relationship as a conditional reflex (now called conditioned response).

GETTING SHOT AT OR KILLED AT WOULD RESULT IN THE CONDITIONED RESPONSE OF RUNNING LIKE HELL WHEN SEEING/SMELLING HUMANS.

HERES ANOTHER CLASSIC:

"Rats have been used in experimental mazes since at least the early 20th century. Thousands of studies have examined how rats run different types of mazes, from T-mazes to radial arm mazes to water mazes. These maze studies are used to study spatial learning and memory in rats. Maze studies helped uncover general principles about learning that can be applied to many species, including humans. Today, mazes are used to determine whether different treatments or conditions affect learning and memory in rats."

Thats pretty simplified...but to me the whole question of animals being smart is fascinating especiially as my MS is in psychology..I always wonder what makes people and animals do what they do. Through my observations animals are capable of learning, sometimes to a very high degree. This indicates intelligence not just instincts. Ever engaged in a battle with gray squirrels trying to raid your bird feeders?...very capable of quickly learning new strategies to defeat your new defensive set ups...I generally take advantage of the cumulative generational learning of my species and win the battle by taking a gun and shooting the squirrel
  I think all species build upon the discoveries of the ones that came before them. For instance if your a child and your parents teach you to trap...its basically the same thing as a young seagull watching the older gulls flying up and dropping clams down onto the rocks to break them open...generationally based learned behavior...I have to think young coyotes learn from their parents to avoid humans,the ones that dont die early and the ones that do live to breed and pass the knowledge along to their own offspring.

A perfect example is crow hunting...you set up and hit em with the Johnny Stewart Death Cry of a Crow...they will swarm you and you shoot the hell out of them a few times...BUT...afore long...they will NOT come in but either circle way high in the air or not come in at all....and it takes them very little time to learn that behavior...and then you have to rest the area or use a totally different tactic to lure them in.

So in closing this mighty missive....I think yes predators/animals act on instinct, BUT I would say they are also "smart"  as they have the capacity to learn and reason  and I must respectfully disagree with my fellow New Hampshire member, B204's statement,

"I think that they are not smart, cannot reason"

[onecoyote]

Coyotes are survivors and opportunists and are probably one of the smartest predators on the planet. Coyotes can reason.  Some examples of many I have witnessed:
I saw a coyote try to lure a young beagle that was sitting on it's stoop, across a highway into a dirt road. The young dog would not follow the coyote, lucky for him, because there in the brush on that dirt road were two other coyotes waiting in ambush.

Having a coyote wait for no one to be around so he could slip into a Nevada casino's back door to steal a roast beef with the string still binding it together and his tail wagging as he succeeded in his escape. Unfortunately he didn't actually succeed as I shot him going up a hill. That was one smart coyote.

Why do most coyotes head downwind? Because they are smart enough to use all of their senses, hearing, eyesight and smelling. You can call it what you want but I call this reasoning.
They also have their own communication system which is a sign of intelligence. To say a coyote is not smart or can't reason is not valid.

[Bopeye]

Coyotes are survivors and opportunists and are probably one of the smartest predators on the planet. Coyotes can reason.  Some examples of many I have witnessed:
I saw a coyote try to lure a young beagle that was sitting on it's stoop, across a highway into a dirt road. The young dog would not follow the coyote, lucky for him, because there in the brush on that dirt road were two other coyotes waiting in ambush.

Having a coyote wait for no one to be around so he could slip into a Nevada casino's back door to steal a roast beef with the string still binding it together and his tail wagging as he succeeded in his escape. Unfortunately he didn't actually succeed as I shot him going up a hill. That was one smart coyote.

Why do most coyotes head downwind? Because they are smart enough to use all of their senses, hearing, eyesight and smelling. You can call it what you want but I call this reasoning.
They also have their own communication system which is a sign of intelligence. To say a coyote is not smart or can't reason is not valid.

What was the coyote doing to lure the beagle? Was it in heat? Jumping up and down? Waving hello?
Did you see the two coyotes in the bush?

I had a squirrel steal sunflower seeds out of my living room one time. Not sure how smart he was, but he did get away with it. 

Most animalls with any decent sense of smell use their nose and get downwind of things. Deer, bear, coyotes, elk, fox,  etc. Not sure if it's reasoning or instinct.

Anymore thoughts on this?

[KySongDog]

Are predators smart?

Compared to what?  I think the answer is relative to what you are comparing the predator to.   For example, a coyote compared to a rabbit or mouse is smarter.  A coyote compared to a human is not so smart.  As evidenced by the fact we hunt them.

I think every living thing has its own nature.  It is the sum total of millions of years of evolution.  The predator uses its senses to survive.  Just like a turkey does.  I wouldn't call a turkey smart (unless I am hunting it  )  but it uses its senses to be very wary.

A mature 6 1/2 year old buck is far smarter than your average yearling buck.  But he is not smarter than humans.

It is all a matter of what you compare the animal to, IMHO. 

[onecoyote]

Bopeye,
You probably have to ask the coyote what it was doing trying to get the dog across the street. If it was a female it was not in heat because it wasn't at the right time of year for  coyotes to be mating. It also wasn't "jumping up and down". 
I was sitting on a hill in my truck watching the whole show unfold. I could have shot the coyote but it wasn't very far from a mobile home. So I figured I'd sit there and watch what happened. The whole thing probably lasted all of 3 or 4 minutes. The coyote noticed me in my truck and got nervous and walked back across the paved road into the dirt road where it met up with the other two hiding in the brush. If that's not an ambush in the making, I don't know what it was.
I don't know that any animal uses it's nose as much as a coyote nor do I think any animal uses it's nose as well. Deer are not in the same category as coyotes when it comes to smell. Bears have a great sense of smell but don't always go downwind. You could call it instinct and I could call it reasoning, who's right? I think it would be hard to prove one way or the other but I believe coyotes reason and have a high grade of intelligence (there are dumb coyotes too, kinda like some people but they tend to die young).
There are a lot of people out there that don't give coyotes the credit they deserve for being survivors. Instead, they give them credit for being blood thirsty killers which they are not. They get blamed for a lot of things they don't do. Almost anyone who has been hunting, calling and observing coyotes a long time, respects them for their abilities. I for one sure do.
Good Hunting

[alscalls]

I have seen similar things happen when the Dog was in heat.....
Seen where coyotes tore the siding off a trailer once trying to get to a dog in heat.....
Dogs have a different heat cycle than youtes and I cant help but wonder if the yote thinks they are inferior because of it.

[MDM]

IMO the coyote is one the smartest darn animals out there.

[coyotehunter_1]

onecoyote wrote:

Almost anyone who has been hunting, calling and observing coyotes a long time, respects them for their abilities.

Danny,
I fully agree with you on this statement, as I'm sure others here will also. I know from your past history here and on other boards you have gained many years of experience in the field of coyote behavior. Also you are quite willing to pass along your knowledge to those that will listen. I truly respect you and your efforts. That said, being able to access areas that often holds a dense coyote population is a blessing when it comes to observing and learning the coyote's daily habits. You know everyone on the Internet knows there are more coyotes out there in the west, than east. The majority of us here (in the east) are lucky to have the opportunity to observe a single coyote during several months time, let alone several coyotes in a days time. As far as I'm concerned, anytime you feel like passing along some of that hard earned knowledge I for one will be listening.


Good hunting, Sir









Chet