Case Study: The Effect of Coyote Removal in Texas 

By: Noah Hibbard and Emma Church 

Location: 

Food chain of the plains of West Texas:Primary Producers: • Various species of grasses and herbaceous flowering plants

(forbs) Primary Consumers: • Jackrabbits • Cottontails• Ground squirrels• Rodents

Secondary Consumers: • Badgers• Bobcats• Skunks• Grey fox

Tertiary Consumer:• Coyote

Why Remove Coyotes? 

Coyote Removal     

Humans eliminate coyotes because: • increasing game populations of those species• to protect their livestock, pets, and small children

The effect of removing coyotes from an environment varies for each different community.  

Effect of coyote removal on primary and secondary consumer population

How Population Size is Affected by: 

*Natality- The ratio of the number of births to the size of the population; birth rate*Immigration- the act of entering another place *Mortality- death rate *Emigration- the act of leaving one place 

Reasons for the Exponential Growth, Plateau, and Transitional Phase: • Addition and Removal of Coyotes 

Why did the rodent species increase after the coyotes were removed? 

After the three year experiment, what would be the repercussions of adding

coyotes back into the ecosystem? 

What would happen to the coyotes if more rodents were introduced into the

ecosystem? 

Information Received from: 

http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/coyotes.pdf