Posts Tagged → biology
PA is at Peak Rut, so just do it
I drove through farmland, mountains, and valleys a couple days ago, and I swear to you, no lie, I saw a huge stud buck out in every field I went by. Half were alone, half were with a doe. Some of these monsters were standing close to the highway, which explains why the highways I drove on were littered with dead bucks from car collisions.
We have deer literally coming out of our ears. And not just any deer, but freaking huge trophy bucks that were unimaginable when I was a kid, and an adult. These are trophy animals by any standard, whether you hunt in Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, or Indiana.
Twenty four years ago, Pennsylvania entered uncharted waters and started a new deer management program. I was peripherally involved as a mostly bystander with field level fifty yard line seats. The PA Game Commission’s new deer management methodology was biologically sound, but untested in modern times. And because it involved axe murdering about fifty percent or more of the standing doe population, and setting aside all the small bucks, almost every old timer hunter went into a kiniption fit.
Families fell apart, PGC commissioners and staff wore bulletproof vests to PGC board meetings, people’s tires were slashed, hunting clubs dissolved, and for about fifteen years PA’s political map was turned upside down. Go ahead and laugh all you flatlanders, go ahead, yuk it up. What a bunch of rubes, what a bunch of rednecks and hayseed hillbillies…who in their right mind cares about deer management so much that literally our state politics got turned upside down?
Fun fact: Hunting in Pennsylvania is about a $1.5 Billion annual industry, and maybe more than that. Hunting is a sustainable, renewable, ecologically sound industry. For just a few months a year. So a lot is at stake when changes are made to the hunting system. It isn’t just hillbilly farmers who like to hunt who are impacted by hunting regulations here, it is literally every small rural town that has a restaurant or two, the deer processors, the hunting clothing manufacturers. Hunting in PA is big business.
So when I say that I saw all these huge bucks the other day, it means that the PGC deer management program, which began with a small mushroom cloud in 2000, is now working as planned like a Swiss watch. You don’t get to see government actually do positive things very often, or implement policies that work, but in this instance we did, we do. The PA Game Commission deserves a lot of credit for both using sound biology AND stoically enduring the brutal politics that followed.
Right now PA is at peak rut, meaning the bucks are in full rut, horned up and lookin’ for love. Like all stupid men chasing tail, huge bucks that are otherwise almost impossible to get near (because they are smart as hell) can now easily find themselves broadside to a bow and arrow at fifteen yards. So go do it, git yerself sum.
May I recommend a few things?
First, whatever skills you developed in the early archery season, they are now only partly applicable. Because rutting bucks are wanderers, the bucks you scouted and marked down in October could be the next county over. This means that you cannot just set up over a trail and wait. You need to lure in the wandering bucks, and that can be done with doe pee (https://kirschnerdeerlure.com/ get the SilverTop), a sparingly used grunt call, or rattling antlers. This also means that bucks from the next county over will be wandering around where you hunt.
Second, work hard on concealing your blinds. Especially your ground blinds. Man, nothing is more garish and glaring than a poorly concealed ground blind. I see guys just setting a blind out in the open and hoping a deer won’t notice. But guys, come on, the deer might now see you inside the blind, but THEY CAN SEE YOUR BLIND and they are spooked by it. It is an unnatural thing on the landscape. So tuck your blind back into the edge of the woods and brush it in well, so that it blends in with the surroundings.
Happy hunting, and just do it, get yourself one of PA’s unbelievable trophy bucks wandering around hill and dale right now. And do not forget to thank PGC personnel when you see them, because they are the ones who implemented the outstanding deer management policy that we are all benefiting from now.
A Murder of Crows
My two greatest thrills in the outdoors are native wildflowers, like the trilliums and pink ladyslippers, and native birds, like grouse, turkey, woodcock, wood ducks, and various migratory songbirds.
All of these flowers and birds are under pressure under the best of circumstances, and in many places they are succumbing to that pressure because of artificial factors.
Native wildflowers are naturally browsed by deer, and increasingly collected by people who sell rare plants (and animals). If deer herds are balanced with the carrying capacity of the landscape and surrounding habitat, then the plant colonies can sustain the browsing. The collecting is usually illegal, involving sneaky trespass on private property and violating state law and regulation when done on public land. It is totally unsustainable.
When it comes to my favorite birds, the usual pressures of predation or hunting are hardly a factor in their population success. What is a growing factor is the impact of ground mammals on ground nesting birds, including all of my favorites above and others like more common ducks.
Ground mammals like raccoons, possums, skunks, fox and coyote have a natural place in the natural world, but humans have so greatly altered that natural world that some of these animal populations are disproportionately growing and having disproportionate impacts on other wildlife.
Exhibit A is low density suburban sprawl type residential home development, relatively large home lots in the one to five -acre range.
Low-density suburban sprawl residential development is now the ground zero for artificially high numbers of skunks, possums, and raccoons. Sprawl development provides perfect backyard habitat for these predators to breed and den, but these back yards are too small to hunt or trap effectively or legally. So these burgeoning and unchecked predator populations keep pulsing out into surrounding farmland and forest. In those more stable habitats, these artificially high predator numbers wreak havoc on the other species who live there, notably my favorite birds, which happen to be ground nesters.
Ground nesting birds are highly susceptible to nest disturbance and egg loss when they are surrounded by artificially high populations of skunks, raccoons, and possums. In many areas ground nesting birds are experiencing dramatic population declines because they simply cannot nest long enough to hatch a brood of chicks, or the chicks cannot survive predation long enough to develop flight, so they can escape from otherwise slow moving predators like skunks and possums. Adding to the challenge for ground nesting birds is the dearth of brush and young forest which provide the best places to hide a nest on the ground. Most farms today are devoid of brush, and “select cut” high-grade logging has ruined most private forests, while anti-conservation activists decry aggressive forest management on public lands. Brush and young forests are nearly a rarity today, despite serving as nature’s best habitat.
Yesterday I got into one of those internet debates most normal people avoid. It centered on allegedly real photos of a flying mature eagle with a talon stuck in a foothold trap, posted on Lancaster Online. Lancaster Online is run by politically partisan legacy media staff, and it is a huge source of fake news and alternate facts. So when I saw there the photo of a completely closed foot hold trap, with not even a tiny jaw spread to accommodate the eagle’s foot, it looked like yet more fake news and I posted comments.
As you might imagine, a murder of crows of sorts descended upon the article, and upon me, and upon any other poster who either questioned the facts as presented in the article, or who promoted trapping.
Crows are natural enemies of eagles and other raptors. Crows are huge nest raiders, eating baby bird chicks whole right out of the nest. In the context of the Lancaster Online article, the crows took human form: Animal rights promoters, PETA advocates, anti-trapping and anti-conservation voices.
Like with a surrounding pack of crows (called a “murder”) wildly harassing a lone eagle in a tree, the loudly hysterical anti-trapping commenters immediately invoked emotional appeals, personal attacks, lies, advocacy for trespassing, leash-less dogs, and private property theft and destruction. None of them made any sense. None were based on fact, though it is true that occasionally an animal in a trap gets hurt (never mind that every single one of those hypocritical commenters has a direct hand in wildlife death and destruction).
I responded frequently there, and was answered by a surrounding murder of crows, loudly cawing, squawking, screaming, wildly flapping their wings and leaping from tree to tree. Pretty funny to watch, because not one commenter there debated wildlife biology, habitat, etc. Only emotional appeals mostly based on lies and fake news were presented. Lots of hysteria, not much reasoning.
And that right there is why I trap, dear reader.
There are too damned many cantankerous crows, skunks, possums and raccoons eating all of the really cool, cute, useful little birds I enjoy so much. I haven’t sold a pelt since I was a kid. Instead, today I trap to thin out the populations of the destructive ground predators so that the defenseless animals they eat have at least a sitting chance.
As for the eagle photographed flying around Lancaster County with its talon caught in the foothold trap, I have pledged fifty dollars toward its rehabilitation, if it is caught alive. And I want to personally inspect the trap rig, because what is seen in the photos makes no sense. One commenter, a trapper, noted it appeared to be an illegal trap specifically set to catch a raptor, like the eagle, in which case this subject isn’t about trapping, it is about illegal wildlife poaching.
But you’d never know that from the deafening screaming and cawing and flapping from the uncaring, unthinking, hostile, mob-like murder of crows.
UPDATE: 2/8/17 4:30 pm “Just received a call from PGC Director Matt Hough. Matt informed me that the eagle/trap incident was a true event. Fortunately, PA Game Commission officers were able to capture the eagle and remove the trap. There was no damage to the talon. The eagle was released and flew away with no impairment as a result of the incident. Matt did not have any information as to the individual responsible for the trap,” from an email sent to me this afternoon.