"They're eating them!" responded the animal damage control officer I was talking to. He then told me of his experience in a helicopter surveying an area for predators. He saw over 20 fresh deer kills from predators in one day. He even scared a lion off a fresh trophy buck kill. He reported that predators were taking more of our deer and livestock than people think.

While researching this article, I asked the title question to several different people and quickly discovered that this is a hot topic among various circles. I get one answer from the sheep ranchers who have had to forge out a living while constantly dealing with predators. A completely different answer came from my colleagues at the university; and I get a different and even more technical answer from the people who manage and research our deer herds.

I find many people who are not informed about what is really going on. I would like to share a couple of experiences I have personally had dealing with this topic.

While coyotes are opportunistic feeders, not all coyotes will actively pursue deer. For example, on another occasion, I was out looking for shed antlers. I was eating lunch on a little sage hill and saw a small group of deer which included several small fawns. Suddenly, they all raised their heads and looked in the same direction. I scanned the countryside and noticed an adult coyote meandering in their general direction. The deer didn't seem overly concerned as the coyote passed by, a mere 30 yards away from the fawns.

Being a little concerned with the events, I asked a good friend of mine who does a lot of research on coyotes why this happened and why the coyote didn't even seem interested in the fawns. He told me that not all coyotes will kill fawns. He said that killing fawns is a learned trait and that not all pups learn this skill. In other words, if a pup doesn't learn to kill fawns when he is young, he probably won't kill them when he is older. It is usually the territorial coyotes that do most of the deer and fawn killing, while some coyotes are content with other prey.

Mountain lions are an entirely different story. It has been speculated that a lion will kill one deer a week. If this is true, we are losing a lot of deer to these kitties. I once stumbled onto a doe that had recently been killed by a lion. I didn't see the lion, but his tracks were everywhere around the freshly killed carcass. Bears, bobcats, and foxes also participate in deer herd management.

Next, I would like to focus on livestock predation. Having been raised around livestock, I have seen first hand the damage that predators can inflict. The area in which I grew up is the home for over 60,000 sheep and lambs and over 50,000 cows.

Every year livestock producers take their stock to their summer and winter ranges knowing that it's not if predators will kill their stock, but how many will they kill.

In 2000, predators accounted for the deaths of 8,200 sheep and 29,300 lambs, a total of 37,500 sheep*, in Utah alone. This comes out to be about $2,141,000 in losses to the sheep industry. This is a small number compared to the 53,700 sheep and lambs that lost their lives to predators in 1996**, which amounted to over $5 million in losses. I think these numbers speak for themselves. Keep in mind, these numbers are for Utah alone. There are many states that loose livestock to predators.

Last year my wife and I had the pleasant experience of taking some of our misinformed, anti-predator hunting friends (Brad and Amy) home to our family ranch for a couple days of fence building. We had been experiencing coyote problems that year and had lost a good portion of our lamb crop to these mutton-loving canines.

While we were working on the fence, Amy glanced out into one of our pastures and noticed about 15 white fluffy objects scattered throughout the pasture. She asked me what they were, and when I replied that they were baby lambs that had been killed the previous week by coyotes, her eyes widened and a look of sheer terror came over her face. After that experience, she didn't have a problem with me hunting coyotes and even let her husband, Brad, accompany me on several hunts.

The purpose of this article is not to sway the reader one way or the other. It is to merely make a few points and state some facts. To sum everything up, we are always going to have predators. They are a vital part of our existence. Predators are a tool nature uses to keep a good balance in our environment.

They usually become a problem because of something we as humans have done. They are trying to make a life for themselves just as we are trying to make a life for ourselves. Many strategies have been implemented to control these predators, but Mother Nature has always had a way of maintaining her own.

I'm thankful for the great times I have had watching, filming, and hunting these critters. I'm sure they will be around long after I'm gone and provide many memorable moments for my children and grandchildren.