Kill a varmit, save a gamebird, and fur prices

one more point, i can remember many years ago there were few hawks and lots of phesants, today it is just the opposite with more predators than ever, especially hawks and skunks.
 
missourihunter85 said:
I hate to sound like I disagree with everyone on this issue because I’m sure hawks and coyotes do kill a few pheasants, but what I’ve heard in the past and it makes since to me is that hawks and coyotes help the quail population, I would be willing to assume that it would be close to the same with pheasant. I don’t live around an area with pheasant populations so I could be completely wrong about the similarities between quail and pheasants, but what I’ve been told makes sense to me.

A hawk’s main diet is field mice, and snakes. The field mice and snakes actively search for and will devastate a quail nest and kill several soon to be gamebirds in one go around, instead of a single bird at a time.

Coyotes displace foxes, a coyote’s main diet is rabbits, they don’t pay much attention quail, and I’m not saying if given the opportunity they won’t kill and eat a quail, but they don’t actively hunt them. Foxes play a much larger roll in killing quail. Again also coyotes eat a lot of field mice that do search for the nests of quail.

So with low numbers of these two animals the rodent population will boom, and with a large population of rodents, quail and pheasant eggs will have a hard time making it through, therefore taking a large toll on these birds that we take so much enjoyment in.
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Hit the nail on the head with me! Problem is that the same topic comes up a number of times each year--someone posts words of reality such as yours--and they go in one ear and out the other with most.

It's really just as you described with pheasants. Few raptors really bother pheasants much. Coyotes don't take them very often either but fox do--and killing coyotes sure helps fox thrive. Pheasant biologists and Pheasant's Forever folks have been saying research does not support the idea that killing coyotes helps pheasants for years. Old habits die hard, just like old wives tales....
 
I started this post mainly aimed at coons. If any of you have ever tried to keep barnyard chickens in coon country you should have little doubt of their ability and proclivity to dramatically affect poultry numbers both wild and domestic. i remember a DU study on the Dakota prairie that identified skunks and coons as the single major predators of duck nests, you think they eat only ducks? Yes, coyotes don't tolerate foxes in their territory, by the way timber wolves don't tolerate coyotes either. I know how fond some of you are of the burgeoning wolf pack. In our infinite wisdom and guided by the "expert research", we have crp 33 buffer strips about 60 foot wide all over the country, just the right size to concentrate birds for all winged and 4 and 2 legged predators. PROBLEM IS, the two legged predator is the only one observing a season! In all "old wives tales", there is a root of truth, they didn't call them "chicken hawks", in my youth because they were afraid of chickens. Wolves do actually eat people, when they lose the fear born of centuries of persecution. Ask California about cougars. Nobody disputes that properly managed habitat, and that's the key, in abundance, is more than adequate to provide for the needs of a vibrant pheasant population. Million dollar question ? Where is that? even South Dakota, and Kansas, have vast dead zones where little habitat exists, consequently darn few birds. All other states are more fragmented and the future is not indicative of a big change for the better. So we select for the predator, of all types, protect them, let them eat your birds, watch as habitat deteriorates and is plowed under by the 100's of acres, while getting all warm and fuzzy over a ribbon cutting on the latest 40@ patch of heaven created by a statewide fundraising effort. It will make a nice focal point for the predators. Last I heard the almighty gave man dominion over the beasts. We better start working both end toward the goal of not just more birds, but more huntable birds, which has the components of limiting nest predators, adult bird predators, and more habitat. I guarantee you this, you can't create enough habitat with the reality of todays agribusiness to amount to a hill of beans, until or unless, it makes powerful economic sense for the people who don't give a hoot for any reward but the bottom line to make changes which develop habitat. The last 100 years are devestating testimony. The last saving grace was the dust bowl, created financial ruin in agribusiness, as a reward to greed and stupidity, the only completely man made ecological disaster in history! Allowed for conservation measures to come into play to by necessity and public demand. wildlife benefitted and recovered, We have now spent the last 40 years undoing all that, tilling marginal ground,irrigating from the Ogalalla auquifer from The Dakota's to Texas until the thing goes dry, root plowed and burned hedgerows. That's the current national and individual commitment to conservation, and habitat. So I say celebrate the creation of new habitat, manage it well, hope somebody prunes the predators so some of those hens live to raise a brood.
 
Good topic. I would rather see a coyote in my quail and pheasant habitat than a fox. Then there are the crows, ground squirrels, and weasles around here that do there fair share of nest depredation. We always clear out as many raccoons as we can in our quail spots, and maybe even a bobcat here and there, but when one dies another takes its place.:(
 
By the way, I'll give pheasant hens a fighting chance at defending their nests against snakes, mice, cotton rats, voles,...... against coons , foxes, skunks, and possums not so much!
 
hmm.. i suppose its time to dust off of the ol .223 and grab the ol rabbit in distress call and have at it here this weekend..
 
FCSpringer said:
Well city folk mostly don't get a chance to see what we have right out side our doors every day. We live in reality, so not to be harsh, but I completely disagree with both of you. I see the coyote tracks and the dead birds to prove it often. They are every bit as opportunistic as a fox. They are gifted and sly hunters. They run fox out because they are at the top of the two's food chain and are better at survival. All varmints are hard on nests. They don't have to kill an adult bird, they can kill 10 in a nest. And too many yotes is a bad thing all around out here in the "rural" America for all wild life. I wish more people would do there part in harvesting varmints and predators and not just sit back and enjoy the spoils of pheasant hunting. With this idealism and less and less of a fur market and people harvesting them, it will get much worse. And so will distemper and rabies. History has a way of repeating itself, and thats where we learn, not from some college book. Real knowledge as they say is learned out "in" the work place.
:cheers:
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couldn't agree more-
also- cats- even without a house within 3 miles cats come arround here-
couple have been sneaking arround the quail cage- I have a couple small leg traps

here's something to think about-
we have pointing dogs that can get within grabbing distance of a pheasant-
don't you think a coyote or fox can do the same
I've watched a coyote hunting with binocs here- took about 10 min- then was walking away with a hen in it's mouth-
I agree though- their main food is mice
 
FC the "the "experts" don't now nuttin, can't learn it from books, I see what I see" words of yours are typical and commonly expressed, so don't take this wrong (lots of great people feel the way you do), but they are WAY off base.

The knowledge that coyotes aren't nearly as big a threat to pheasants as other ground predators didn't all come from some theory in a book.

It came from field research, with pheasants radio-collared so their movements and fate can be determined, and from locating and then following the fate of many thousands of pheasant nests.

This I would point is year-round info--if you are honest, you'd have to say you have little clue what is really going with pheasants in the spring and summer, and most of your observations are fall/winter ones.

Coyotes are primarily mousers--they are opportunists that won't pass up a meal--but they are primarily mousers. Many times I've seen them right behind a hay blade or rake chasing the mice and voles that suddenly had the roof over their heads ripped off. I've seen pheasants and deer very close to them while they are doing this a few times and the coyotes have been oblivious to them, in fact they get real close to the equipment at times they are so focused on their mousing.

With pheasants it's all about hens and nesting success, and the time of year of mortality makes a huge difference. The difference between an opportunistic coyote taking a wing-tipped pheasant in the fall or a few birds out of a shelter belt in a bad winter weather spell--versus a fox taking a number of hens right off their nests in the spring-- isn't even close!

The lifetime of a pheasant is surprisingly short. Few hens that start out in the egg survive until the following spring to breed. If predators don't get them weather or accidents will, for the vast majority of them. A predator killed hen in the fall or winter may likely have died and not have been a nester the following spring anyway.

But a hen that did survive--and was bred--and successfully nests--is a valuable commodity.

Unlike coyote's, fox actively search for bird nests full time, and they are good at it--REALLY good if the habitat patches are small or narrow. When they find a nest--which occurs more often at night than during the day--they kill that hen that survived the winter to breed, AND they take the whole nest out. That is much more damaging to pheasant #'s the following fall than a fall/winter killed bird that on average would not have survived the winter to nest anyway.

Coons can be pretty rough on hens and nests too but their search pattern doesn't extend out away from water into upland areas and fields as much as fox. Skunks typically leave the hen which can then renest.

Now coyotes and fox don't get along. Where you have decent #'s of 'yote's, they keep the fox out. Which means fewer hens and nests get taken out. Lean on the 'yote's hard by killing them and you increase the odds for fox to thrive.

Research as you described seeing in Iowa has gone on for years in Iowa, MN, the Dakota's, Nebraska and other locales, and has consistently shown that areas with good coyote numbers have fewer fox--and those areas have higher pheasant hen survival and nesting success in many cases too.

Sometimes what you see out your kitchen window isn't as good a reflection of reality as it appears.

I've hunted coyotes and find it fun and very challenging--but I don't have any illusions that taking them out is helping game species much if at all.
 
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TMrichardson, I was wondering if you know where the studies you mentioned about the coyotes diet are located? I'd like to read up on those. My regional DNR Biologist and I were talking about this exact subject a couple months ago and he mentioned a similar study about the coyote’s diet not including much pheasant in it.

The study found coyotes were feeding on mice and rabbits, not pheasants. I looked the study up and read up on it. It turns out the coyotes observed were in urban areas. Obviously urban areas don't have all too many pheasants so naturally they the coyotes would feed on mice and rabbits. Obiously this was not a good sample for rural area coyotes.

Anyway, I would appreciate any help with those studies you’re referring to. If you don't know exactly where you got the info from just let me know and I'll do some searching. ;)Thank you. --1pheas4
 
FCSpringer said:
OK but those studies like any study are not done every where. They never are. One that makes sense in one area does not hold water in other areas. And I do see the evidence year round, I work on predator and varmint control in the summer as well. I know the difference between fox tracks and coyote. I see the eaten hens in the summer and nests destroyed. We have lots of coyotes now and no fox in the area. All predators actively hunt for anything they can get there hands on. Yotes spend many hrs hunting cattail sloughs at night for birds all winter, see the evidence often. They are gifted at knowing where and when there best opportunity's are. You will not find a land owner around that will agree with the evidence you provide, or one that wants them on there property. Funny, when an area gets overloaded with yotes, the hunting for birds and deer dwindles. Thats enough evidence alone for most land owners. But you may be right, when the snow is waist deep, they probably just eat mice all winter. Don't take it wrong is a common phrase used by experts when they try to prove they know more then others. But ask your self how often have experts got things wrong when it comes to Natural Resources. Off topic, but as an example of an old project, what happened to the carp trap operation. It was studied by experts I'm sure. Put in place, cost millions in tx payers $, flooded out many homes, changed natural spawning areas on mass scale for the worse, was then abandoned, and still litters the landscape with rotting steel and interfering with natural water flow of old. At least that is a perception I have, in no way am I an expert or can prove this to be true or am I saying this is what happened. Just using it as an example that all studies may not be as accurate as so call experts try to make them out to be.
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i agree, many folks thought Obama was an expert, we saw how that turned out! :(
 
I always hate to get involved in this type of discussion. Too many folks believe what they want to believe despite mountains of information to the contrary. Too many folks have the posse-comatatas mentality that anything touched by government is bad, and much of the scientific studies are done by States and State Universities. Others can't believe that studies wouldn't turn out the same if done in their neck of the woods. That being said, Mr. Richardson has done his home work and has provided very valuable information. Many studies have been done all across the nation on topics relating this very issue and the predominant result is that habitat issues are the cause of the general decline across the gamebird distribution map. Yes, local predator populations do have an effect, but these species have evolved together for eons and the declines seen in the past 100 years in our bird populations aren't a direct result of their somehow achieving more greatly than they have in the past. The studies on coyote diet are well documented. They are a very limited gamebird predator, with many of the gamebirds that they eat being wounded or killed by hunters. The mesopredators like coon, skunk, and possum are more of a problem as a nest predator than they are as a direct predator. This too can be mitigated by habitat management and development. Yes, local trapping of mesopredators can enhance nest success temporarily. However, the manpower needed to make the predator removal a success has to be significant and persist throughout the nesting season. Predators are genetically programmed to seek out voids in their population and fill those voids. That means predators move into habitat where predators have been removed. The cost per unit effort balance weighs in the favor of habitat management and development, not in predator control. In fact, removing coyotes from an area can actually increase the nest mortality from not only the mesopredators, but from snakes, cotton rats, and other species that coyotes do eat. I encourage everyone to take the time and find a bunch of these articles and digest them. They will help you eye for habitat in the field and may help you articulate with landowners what will best serve your bird dog this coming fall.
 
Coyotes spend a lot of time hunting rodents in the grasslands, cover a lot of area. No question:rolleyes: the result when they come across a bird nest.

Coyotes hunt a lot at night, roosting pheasants are easy prey.

When coyotes go after the toothy critters, raccoons, skunks fox, such as some studies suggest. A sure sign that normal prey species such as gamebirds, rodents etc. Are depleted in that area. A normal cycle.

The last survivors are likely to be the coyotes, they will adjust to whats available. In the West it would be calves and sheep.

Coyotes much prefer prey that won't put up a fight or bite back. It's true:( why would they?

Remember "good game bird habitat makes excellent predator habit"

The main reasons there are steady [relatively] pheasant populations in Dakotas and E MT. Is for sure the habitat and the country boys have the 22-250's in the cab and the kill the predators. [the legal ones]
 
oldandnew said:
Prior to the government love affair with raptors, the old south quail plantations used to put a telephone pole in the middle of a weed field with a hot electric wire across the perch, eliminated a lot of quail competitors. In the last century, there was a place Pennsylvania where hawks migrated through in the fall, all the hunters gathered for pass shooting. Maybe a little to extreme, but we're to touchy feely now. The political correct answer now is it's all about habitat, and while I agree that habitat is the first major ingredient, reducing predators on the little bit of quality habitat we have, makes a big difference, be they winged or 4 legged, until or unless we have literally miles of habitat. As it is now, with limited habitat we have a predator buffet.
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I couldnt agree with you more habitat is the basis. Habitat with predator reduction provides outstanding hunting. Way too many predators out there.
 
Kill A Predator----------------CHECK----------------------------------

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Anybody that thinks coyotes aren't devastating on wintering/ roosting pheasants ought to get out there. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of late season bird hunting in Western ND and Eastern MT at lots of locations. I then hunt the heavy cover. Cattails, brushy coulees river and creek bottoms. Snow on the ground, everywhere coyote tracks and pheasant feathers. Pheasant are concentrated in the roosting areas and the coyotes have easy prey.

Studies done to support predation are clearly motivated by anti hunting and especially anti trapping and trappers. A good population of Coyotes would surely limit hunters and hunting success. Look whats happened in states where there is habitat and no game birds. Studies for sure. Save the coyote.:eek:
 
Our high school mascot is the coyote, and it ain't because they are rare. Me and my brother killed 4 out of this same 40 acre vineyard in a week. It's odd though because the quail and rabbit populations are very strong. Here is my brother with a summer dog.

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all critters are cyclical.....look at the deer herd, nationwide there are a ton of deer now, compared to years ago....some areas are conducting reductions by federal game and fish officials. i don't care who writes the reports or makes the upland pheasant predicts for Kansas, i don't trust what they say, their reports are often politicized to an extreme....i do believe my own eyes, the huge increase in predators, the piles of feathers in the fields, etc.
predator control needs to happen, in some areas more than others...shoot a predator, save a pheasant!
 
You can kill all the predators you want but it will not do any good. Just not enough people hunting and trapping to make a difference over a large area. Many predators respond to lower numbers by having larger numbers of young to replentish the population. The thing we should be working on is stopping the habitat loss,that is what will destroy all of our wildlife; predators and all. Big agribusiness and the way they farm will be the main killer when all is said and done. Money is the only thing that matters to them. That is why it is called a business and that greed will destoy the majority of the habitat that is left.
 
Win97 said:
Big agribusiness and the way they farm will be the main killer when all is said and done. Money is the only thing that matters to them. That is why it is called a business and that greed will destoy the majority of the habitat that is left.
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:mad:
Are you serious? Pretty bold to pin this all on farmers and such.

No, I'm not a farmer but have relatives that are - grew up working around them and still occasionally help them during harvest. But farmers just in general provide so much for you and everyone else that you obviously take for granted. If you feel they do it for greed, you have never once stepped outside your world and tried to understand what it takes to operate a farm. Most farmers struggle to keep their operation going and without land, they can't survive. That is just a small grain farm I can speak of. I've tried to understand cattle, etc farms and I can't imagine all their time and efforts to maintaining a healthy livestock. They are not just pets you can throw a bowl of feed and bucket of water out in the pasture.

Obviously the town you live in had to be settled on some form of wildlife habitat back in the day and as every town does - it grows outward and therefore eats away at even more wildlife habitat.

So to sit there and point out one very important cog in our overall economy and an industry that provides so much for your ungrateful a$$. It's just a very big bonehead thing to say.

You show no respect for farmers, why should they respect you and allow you to hunt on their land?
 
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