Coyotes Hunt Deer

On the night of March 17^th, 2012, several coyotes found a deer or perhaps two deer, on the Highway 97 right-of-way near Goats Peak, just north of its junction with the Coquihalla highway. The fence that you see in the video is commonly called a “deer fence”. Its purpose is to keep large wild animals off the highway. Occasionally, however, deer do find their way onto the highway. There they are at great risk, not only from the highway traffic but also from any predators that may find them--for now the fence prevents the deer getting to safety in the forests bordering the highway. The attached video shows coyotes hunting deer along this barrier fence. 



The coyotes have found, or dug, a hole under the fence, through which they slip easily.  But use of such an escape measure is foreign to the nature of a deer, with the result that the deer is usually caught and killed. This seems to be what happened in this case recorded by my trail camera, for the last sequence shows a coyote returning to the Goats Peak side of the fence carrying the leg of a deer.

The original seven short videos were combined and edited by my son Mark.