Fact From Fiction, And The Role Of Bias

If you saw a series of 200 photos of a mature whitetail buck getting nipped and bitten for hours by two coyotes until it was killed, what would you think? It might depend on what you already think.

We all have an innate, basic human nature to form beliefs and then to search out tidbits of information that support said belief. Or, we find tidbits that we feel disprove the opposite of our belief.

This is “myside bias,” or confirmation bias. It’s like a little ball that starts gently moving down a snow-covered hill, picking up more snow with each revolution, slowly adding bulk, substance and speed until it’s an unstoppable force. Once a person reaches that point with a belief, there is no evidence, no actual fact, no reality to dissuade them.

Pick any conspiracy theory or false narrative that’s touted as fact these days. There are many. I’m going to pick one as just as an example. If someone believes the world is flat, they will find “articles” and evidence on the internet that supports their belief. And then social media takes myside bias and turns it on its head and into something dangerous. If a person clicks on an “Earth Is Flat” article, they will magically start to see more Earth Is Flat articles show up on their Facebook and Twitter feeds. When they do a search on the subject, in the results they will be fed articles that support their side. The algorithms of social media and big tech are designed to figure out what you click on and feed you more of that. The result is an echo chamber where, regardless of how removed from fact, an idea is reinforced.

Maybe it’s the coyote on the cover that got me thinking about the big buck in velvet, bleeding from his legs and haunches as two snarling coyotes it took down after hours and hours. It was about 15 years ago when those photos began to circulate through emails. As is still common with outdoor-related photos, somewhere along the line details were added that were far from factual. Folks made up stuff, like where the photos were taken. So GON did what it does. We love getting to the bottom of the story. We eventually tracked down and spoke directly with the hunter who got the photos on his trail camera. His name was Marlin Smith, and he lived in Texas. The trail-cam photos were taken on his hunting lease in Oklahoma. The series of photos—more than 200 pictures—were beyond dramatic. This was a big buck. Hunters were just then getting used to the idea that coyotes did in fact kill lots of fawns. Now, here’s a big, healthy-looking buck. However, even with photo evidence, there were plenty of skeptics. Here’s a sample of comments posted at GON’s forum.gon.com when the photos began showing up.

• “If you really think two tiny mangy little yotes like that would be able to take down a 4.5-year-old buck, you might want to start reasoning a bit. That buck died of a bullet, arrow wound, disease or car accident. A dopey little coyote won’t even take on an adult doe let alone a beast like that.”

• “Probably a penned-up stud buck at a deer farm. Coyotes got in and he could not get out.”

• “There is no way a buck of that age would allow a couple of coyotes to take him down like that. Something had to have been wrong with the buck before the yotes found him.”

• “I ain’t buying it, not enough pics for me to believe this buck stood there for hours, and some pics are of different sizes… Hey I think I see BIGFOOT in there, too.”

Skepticism is encouraged, especially with something received in an email. But this buck wasn’t in a pen, it wasn’t previously injured, and it did in fact stay in front of a trail camera for most of the night as coyotes eventually wore him down and killed him. Marlin sold his photos to Deer & Deer Hunting magazine. You can view 25 images from the series at www.deeranddeerhunting.com/content/articles/coyote-kills-buck-on-camera.

So, what do I think when I see this series of photos?

I don’t think coyotes are killing a bunch of mature bucks. I think they kill some—I know personally of one killed in Morgan County by coyotes during the rut. I also know how easily that could happen after once seeing a mature 8-point buck in November laying and panting in the middle of a paved road after running does to exhaustion. I don’t know how much impact coyotes have on my hunting land, but my sense is that it’s minimal.

However, I do know that coyotes are not native to Georgia. They are an invasive, non-native species. I also believe at least some deer are now learning to live with coyotes, like the does that drop fawns next to a house, against the foundation, every year. Same thing happens across the gravel road at another house. It’s been happening for more than 15 years, so it is offspring now doing it. There’s better fawning habitat than houses. Why are these deer doing this? Could it be because of the coyotes?

I think so. But I’m biased.