Having owned pump and spring .22 and .177, to me it's ludicrous and not humane at all to use them for anything larger than **** and possum.... squirrels, birds, jack rabbits and hares are what these are made for. Some perfect A$$ when I was a kid killed a neighbor's German Shepard (about the size of a large coyote) with his Sheridan .177, it took three days for the poor dog to die, heart and lung wound but not well punctured..but he died a miserable death his owner said. I was in the middle...the neighbor was my friend and so was his dog, the perfect A$$ was also a friend which quickly I made into a FORMER friend and didn't turn him in. The vet could not save the dog apparently although much effort was done to do so.
Air guns come in larger calibers with sufficient energy to easily kill a coyote but Henry brings a valid point across, a moving target, i.e. a walking or even running coyote is going to present such a difficult target to a vital area that a wounded animal will almost certainly result. There has to be calculation of the time it takes the trigger to pull to release the round to the impact time onto the target and not a lot of hunters can gauge this on variable terrain, variable stuff in the way..brush, objects, land forms, the wind, and variable distances. It gets worse. The coyote probably won't be approachable too close unless it is rabid or just plain unwary or unlucky...or eating or taking a dump.
So yes, you can kill a dog or coyote with a small caliber air gun alright but doing it humanely is very very doubtful. Even a head shot has to penetrate the skull and retain enough energy to intersect the brain with enough energy to traumatize it sufficiently to stop the heart. A surface has to be perpendicular to such a weak projectile for such an entry and at close range so the projectile can do its harm. A coyote skull is anything but perpendicular, the round will probably glance off or enter an eye, ear or the mouth/nose parts to only wound the animal and make it suffer immensely.
Use a dang rifle of ample caliber for coyotes and like size game. Yes, elephants can be taken with a .22 rimfire, I heard of that also, but under just the right circumstances and yes the animal will HAVE to suffer even with .22 magnum or other higher powered rimfire .22s.
In Wyoming, livestock was constantly taken by coyotes and we had a rabies problem also which was absolutely gross...animals were dying miserable deaths and infecting domestic animals too and wounding at times livestock which would contract rabies as well and die miserable deaths and possibly infect mates and other herd members. We used cyanide traps for coyotes. A trap with a spring and bait to trigger the firing spring/pin would fire a small squib round like a blank loaded with powdered sodium cyanide into the mouth of the coyote. Cyanide denies tissue the absorption of oxygen so the animal simply goes to sleep and dies. It sounds like brutal asphyxia but it isn't, it does not stop breathing by force like putting a plastic bag over its head, it stops tissue from absorbing oxygen, the brain lacking oxygen simply faints and goes to sleep, the heart stops, the animal is dead, no blood, no wound.
Really, if you have the slightest heart for animals, do NOT use a .22 or .25 cal air gun for coyotes or like sized game. They are too weak for a fast clean kill under most circumstances and MOST CIRCUMSTANCES are what reality is made of. I would suggest to use a .22 rimfire hi vel or .22 magnum at the very least (I used big bore center fire) for head shots only and a guaranteed one dead spot on at that, and actually my Rem scoped .308 for a head shot and wait for A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR THAT HEAD SHOT or I would not shoot. It's pitiful how mankind has made it so that coyotes, essentially dogs, have been crowded so much to take livestock but reality is reality.
