Hawks

Prairie Drifter said:
The problem isn't hawks. If it were, game birds would have been extinct centuries ago. Look at Kansas. So much of the land that could be habitat isn't due to poor management. The hundreds of thousands of acres that have been allowed to turn into solid cedars, woodlands, and exotic grasslands, if converted back to habitat, would give us so many birds that we'd all need more dogs, more winter months, and more understanding bosses. Never a simple answer to a complex question. We need to quit distracting ourselves from what the problem really is, habitat.
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Troy,

I couldn't have ever said it better myself! AS hunters we should all be conservationists and learn what the real issues are. Habitat is key :thumbsup:
At the risk of getting lynched I'll also toss in farming practices. Up here in MN most land gets turned over in the fall creating vast wastelands of black deserts. I know its because of erosion, but western kansas is amazing at leaving cover in almost every field (except winter wheat). That's the main reason there are more jacks and pheasants in Kansas than in Minnesota.

If we ever meet I'd love to have a beer with you :cheers:

Thanks,

Chase
 
If you google this subject ... publications suggest that about 10% of these WINTER avian diets are pheasants. Cottontails (1st), Mice and voles (2nd), distant third ... Pheasants.

Released pheasants are much more susceptible of predation than wild born.

Adequate dispersal, thermal cover, and proximitry between cover and food are keys in reducing predation.
 
BRITTMAN said:
If you google this subject ... publications suggest that about 10% of these WINTER avian diets are pheasants. Cottontails (1st), Mice and voles (2nd), distant third ... Pheasants.

Released pheasants are much more susceptible of predation than wild born.

Adequate dispersal, thermal cover, and proximitry between cover and food are keys in reducing predation.
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Brittman, if you do a bit more research, you'll find that each study has it's own % as there is no continuum in nature. Each habitat matrix, upland bird population, predator population, other prey population and thousands of other variables work in. One study is just that! Predators are opportunists. They catch what they can. Buteo's cannot fly with the game birds much so don't catch much in the air. Falcons are good in the air, but tend to function more in wooded environs. The thing we have control of is the habitat. Many of the raptors are migratory, so they are a different threat seasonally. It's complex.
 
chase0109 said:
Troy,

I couldn't have ever said it better myself! AS hunters we should all be conservationists and learn what the real issues are. Habitat is key :thumbsup:
At the risk of getting lynched I'll also toss in farming practices. Up here in MN most land gets turned over in the fall creating vast wastelands of black deserts. I know its because of erosion, but western kansas is amazing at leaving cover in almost every field (except winter wheat). That's the main reason there are more jacks and pheasants in Kansas than in Minnesota.

If we ever meet I'd love to have a beer with you :cheers:

Thanks,

Chase
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Thanks Chase! What we need is to take care of all the habitat left and make it produce and support game to it maximum level. We're far too often looking for a villain to blame/fight. All too often it is the thing in the mirror that is to blame. Farming practices, grazing practices, forestry practices, mis-management, invasive species and the list goes on. They are all caused by human desires and we are dang poor as hunters at making our desires known. Where the best luck will be is where improving the above listed practices toward making the landowner more $ will also produce more game birds. Plenty of room for improved farming, grazing, and forestry practices!
 
Appreciate the path this thread has taken. Troy, you set a great example in leadership towards habitat and conservation, perhaps even more so because you are a bird hunter. I have enjoyed a couple of the KDWP quail management videos on the property you manage. Before we blame other animals, we should always be first aware of the habitat condition, weather and the hunting pressure placed on a population. We have hawks/falcons in Indiana and they are not the reason the quail have dwindled. Kansas has even more avian predators, but still boasts a much more stable population of upland birds. I get excited occasionally by the thought that management of a predator could boost a population, but it always goes back to habitat. Unfortunately, managing habitat requires a lot more work.
 
Thanks QH! It's easy to see a predator eat a game bird and think that they are a problem. However, those same predators have been affecting our game birds for as long as they both have been here. What's different is how big our footprint is. Pastures are filled with cedars, elms, locust, Russian Olives, and hedge trees. Tall, warm-season grasses have been overgrazed to the point that only the short grass component species can survive. In other places, fescue and brome have replaced those diverse rangelands completely. With quail, mush has to do with their narrow adaptive niche in habitat. With pheasants, a lot has to do with how clean the fields have become. With grouse, the logging that was once commonplace has been put off by protectionists to the bane of what they claim to protect. Here, many of our woodlands are dominated by species that don't even come from here. We can do better.
 
Drifter has covered much of what I was going to say I'll add just a few notes

The average life span of quail is 8 months most do not make it to next years breeding season. Hawks are primarily targeting adults that would count toward the harvestable surplus hinted to by Chase. Nest predators have far more impact to the the fall population then adult mortality as an entire nest is destroyed vs a single individual.

That being said predator control is never a recommended strategy to increase populations. Quail are a prey species and have always dealt with predators. Any predator control program has to be very intensive to have any impact, are extremely expensive, and results are short lived. Furthermore studies have shown that when removing predators in high and low quality habitats, where habitat quaility was high removing predators had no effects on the population where habitat quality was low there were population increases. Provided adequate habitat birds use the survival insticts that have adapted over thousands of years and survive we just need to tip the scale in their favor.

There is a host of literature on predator control and effect (or lack there of) for both pheasant and quail for those that are interested
 
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I see more coopers then anything, really. I can't stand them. At all. That being said, I would certainly hate to see a 'season' on them and realize that it would never happen anyways.

Besides, it's not hawks that are the problem, it's those damn humans. :)
 
Reminds me of the guy who was in federal court for killing and eating a bald eagle when he was lost in the wilderness and about ready to starve. He pleaded to have his sentence reduced because of the gravity of his situation and the fact that it was life or death.

The judge kindly reduced his sentenced to a year, and on the way out of court he stopped the defendant and whispered "just out of curiosity, what does a bald eagle taste like?" To which the defendant promptly replied "oh, hard to describe but I would put it somewhere between a whooping crane and a spotted owl :eek:
 
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1pheas4 said:
I know. I feel the same way about my Lou-lou. The beauty I see in her. If only.........

http://1000uglypeople.com/wp-content/uploads/Ugly-Animals-32.jpg
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HAHAHAHA, I deserve that. I read my post the next day and realized it came off kind of douchey, but then I thought, "screw it, I don't know any of these people..." :laugh:

I guess I was just saying I get where people are coming from with the dislike of them. I was fairly indifferent about them until recently. But spending all that time and energy on one has given me a lot more respect for them.

Thanks for calling me out on that. :cheers:
 
HAHAHAHA, I deserve that. I read my post the next day and realized it came off kind of douchey, but then I thought, "screw it, I don't know any of these people..." :laugh:
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LOl. Yeah. I just couldn't resist that one Toad. I'm still bitter about the which-bird-is-toughest days (pheas vs mallard).:D

I guess I was just saying I get where people are coming from with the dislike of them. I was fairly indifferent about them until recently. But spending all that time and energy on one has given me a lot more respect for them.
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Nah. We get it. They're cool birds. Nature's neat stuff. Too many of one (or many) predator or predators isn't a good thing though. Either-way, how people feel about hawks doesn't matter all too much. They're heavily protected and will remain that way.

P.s--what's with the "I don't know any of these people"? How long have you been hanging around this neck of the woods!?
 
Obviously a mallard is tougher. I'm sure we can all agree on that. :laugh:

Nah, I've hunted with several of the Kansas regulars, and they all seem like good guys. Even planning to try and hook up with a couple of them to go hawking in the next few weeks... It's a pretty good bunch of people. Hopefully the ones I know give me the benefit of the doubt when I say something a little borderline.
 
Question for you Wildlife guys.

If animals, that are federal protected are eating your livestock, (IE a wolf for example) do you have the right to defend your live stock against said predators?
 
V-John said:
Question for you Wildlife guys.

If animals, that are federal protected are eating your livestock, (IE a wolf for example) do you have the right to defend your live stock against said predators?
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I think the correct answer is: ;)S.S.S.;)
 
In Michigan you can protect your livestock from predators that are protected. You can also defend yourself and pets. Least last time I checked that was the case.
 
Years ago (many) when I was a kid in Indiana, it was not very common to see a hawk, fox and never a coyote, now on the way home from work if bad weather is going to be moving in, I can count 12-14 red-tailed hawks sitting on poles on a 10 mile drive back home. I had a red fox for a long time that I would see every morning in front of my house. At work we have had coyotes growling at workers coming into the building in the mornings, and I can see them out along the RR tracks every day from our office windows.
 
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