Removing Nest Predators

F

Fishin'Rod

Member
We have been improving the bird habitat on our property for several years, but have not seen much of an increase in population numbers. Our Kansas property has quail, pheasants, and turkey.

We have noticed lots of fat and happy raccoons thriving on our corn during deer season. I assume as nesting season rolls around, my raccoons (and other nest predators) will start aggressively raiding nests since they have lost their ready supply of feed corn.

I have a few questions for the forum. (I am a low to moderate knowledge land manager.)

1.) What are the legal means of eliminating (shooting, trapping, poisoning) nest predators in Kansas? (Or in your state.)

2.) If legal, is there a method of elimination that is efficient enough to make a meaningful reduction in the nest predator population for the time and effort required? (I live about 45 minutes from our property.)


Thanks for the help!
 
I think I would trap it hard for 10 days or maybe just over the 4 day Thanksgiving weekend and call it good...or find a local trapper and have him trap it...might be hard to get a trapper with fur prices now. The dog-proof cuff style traps should eliminate and accidental dog incidents. Every few years I will trap some in our habitat. Not cost effective but eliminates a few raiders. SD has a program that was in a recent thread here, Iowa has no out of season options, not sure on KS in the off season.
 
How many acres do you have in "habitat", i.e., grass/CRP, food plots, shelterbelts, cattails, etc?

Do you have any old, abandoned structures around? I ask because they are typically great places for nest predators to survive the elements.
 
Thanks for the replies!

Remy, I think I should probably start some light trapping, just to climb up the learning curve and determine how much work it would be to ever go hard on elimination if we decide to go that route. I have never trapped (or helped a buddy trap) so I am sure I will be bad at it at the very beginning.


Golden, only a third of our property is wheat field, the rest is some form of habitat. Our tallgrass prairie is too heavy for optimal habitat, so I have been following Prairie Drifter's advice and been performing patch burns. (We are only about 14 miles from his management area for those of you that are familiar with his property and posts.)

The previous owner left lots of abandoned and collapsed structures on the property. You are correct that I usually hear some creature skitter around if I ever quietly walk past one of those structures. At some point, I will have an excavator on the property for pond work. I should probably pull some of those structures into a pit, remove the plastics, and then burn and bury.
 
Good luck with it, whatever you do. I've contemplated nest predator trapping/elimination on our stuff, but never really done anything about it. We're about 70-80 miles WNW of your stuff, and it sounds like we both live in Wichita. If anyone ever asked me for permission to trap, I'd give a resounding yes to anything except conibears. I'd even let them use those after Jan 31.

Kansas' season goes through 2/28, I think. It seems the same season dates govern trapping and hunting.

Among the many challenges is the following. Pheasants aren't sitting on eggs until mid-April, quail a little bit later than that. That gives the critters 45 days to fill the void created by your catch once the season is closed. If you're only trapping 160 acres and you're surrounded by other habitat, it feels a bit like trying to boil the ocean.
 
"If you're only trapping 160 acres and you're surrounded by other habitat, it feels a bit like trying to boil the ocean."

That is really my main question that I was hoping to get an expert opinion about. (Either positive or negative.)

If I trap 30 coons and 25 move back in over the next 45 days, then I have probably accomplished next to nothing as regards my bird populations. If I trap 30, but the coons don't range far in the spring when their food is plentiful, perhaps the adjacent coons don't start filtering back into our property until after the quail and pheasants have reached maturity?

We do have a live creek on the property. The wet sand bars always show coon prints as they enjoy the "surf" portion of their surf & turf diet. My plan may be completely worthless if coons move laterally along creeks as they clean out the crayfish, frogs, and clams from one area and then just move along the creek to the next good spot.
 
I could sure help you learn the trapping methods that will take coons. Give me a holler and stop by and we can work you through a lot of trapping methods you can use. Conversely, the artificial feeding of deer, and coons at the same time, makes those raccoons more fecund! That means larger litters, better survival, and younger breeding. You might consider not using corn feeders and plant a crop that raccoons don't use. Plenty of options there. With the trapping season now lasting through February, you should be able to shorten the time they have to ingress into your property once your trapping has ended.
 
Fishin'Rod said:
We have been improving the bird habitat on our property for several years, but have not seen much of an increase in population numbers. Our Kansas property has quail, pheasants, and turkey.

We have noticed lots of fat and happy raccoons thriving on our corn during deer season. I assume as nesting season rolls around, my raccoons (and other nest predators) will start aggressively raiding nests since they have lost their ready supply of feed corn.

I have a few questions for the forum. (I am a low to moderate knowledge land manager.)
Excellent
1.) What are the legal means of eliminating (shooting, trapping, poisoning) nest predators in Kansas? (Or in your state.)

2.) If legal, is there a method of elimination that is efficient enough to make a meaningful reduction in the nest predator population for the time and effort required? (I live about 45 minutes from our property.)


Thanks for the help!
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Prairie Drifter said:
I could sure help you learn the trapping methods that will take coons. Give me a holler and stop by and we can work you through a lot of trapping methods you can use. Conversely, the artificial feeding of deer, and coons at the same time, makes those raccoons more fecund! That means larger litters, better survival, and younger breeding. You might consider not using corn feeders and plant a crop that raccoons don't use. Plenty of options there. With the trapping season now lasting through February, you should be able to shorten the time they have to ingress into your property once your trapping has ended.
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Excellent advice… I don’t think you could trap enough while supplying feeder corn.
 
Hi, Prairie Drifter.

Thank you for your generous offer of help on the learning curve! I may take you up on that in the future, since being a poor trapper is not a very good option for a true outdoorsman.

I have added some gravity feeders for deer corn. The game cameras show much more feed going to the deer than the coons on those.

I do have some trapping questions that may or may not be appropriate for the forum? I will probably contact you in a private manner.
 
"Excellent advice… I don’t think you could trap enough while supplying feeder corn."

I didn't know if it was possible, but thought it was definitely worth asking for some expert advice!

I only run still photos on my game cameras, but it appears to me that a group of coons will intimidate does for the corn on the ground on a particular night, but the bucks will intimidate the group of coons. However, the bucks don't stay at the feeder long enough to get all of the corn, so I think the coons come back and get it at dawn. (I will have to check more closely in the future.)

So I think you are correct - my current method of overall land management is INCREASING my population of nest-raiding predators.
 
Don’t give up just adapt…food comes in many forms. Question may be has the corn greatly increased your deer success? If so could something take it’s place?
 
Just a thought: for the time and expense, you might be well-advised to call around and see if you can find an experienced trapper to work your 160 acres. Maybe add a little stipend for success.

Trapping is work, skinning is work, sometimes you need a freezer to save the hides before the rat wagon schedules your area for pickup.

And...(not trying to be negative)...ground predators are not as rapacious as raptors, and raptors are off-limits.

Just stuff to consider.

Best wishes
 
The dog-proof traps are easy enough, kids could use them. Just bait it a marshmallow or cat food. Sadly enough, any you catch, might not even have a market for them right now. With the 2 largest fur buying counties at war with each other now, the fur market is about nothing. Again sadly, I wouldn't bother with the skinning/freezing or even saving the animals fur if there is no market for them. I doesn't seem like the right thing to do, but that is just how it is at this point, you just need to treat then as a nuisance animal, like a prairie dogs, not as furbearers. A lot of good posts here, take PD up on a quick trapping lesson! If you were close, I would loan you some traps!

Last year the local coyote hunters sent their stretched/dried furs to Canada for the fur auctions, few sold. I think they burned those that don't sell. This year it sounds like they don't even pick them up most of the time. Tough times for fur.
 
remy3424 said:
Tough times for fur.
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Not disagreeing at all with this statement in general and in particular concerning the market for nest raiders. But I've heard that the popularity of "Yellowstone" and its spin-offs has driven tremendous demand for beaver. Most beaver goes into the hat market. It seems Stetsons and Resistols are flying off the shelves.
 
Kismet,

We have a pair of Great Horned Owls, a pair of Barred Owls, and at least one nesting pair of Red-Tailed Hawks. One of the hawks will come scream at me for 3 hours straight, even if I am working over a 1/4 mile away from their nest.

Since I can't do anything about those predators, I was hoping that they at least ate some fur-bearer pups!
 
"Don’t give up just adapt…food comes in many forms. Question may be has the corn greatly increased your deer success? If so could something take it’s place?"

I think the corn has been a great benefit - but that is difficult to quantify. I do set up for some very old and limited mobility family members. In the stand early, near a timed throwing feeder, has worked well for their harvest.

Those are also the feeders that show the most coons eating corn off the ground during the night, and then trying to manipulate the spinner for more corn if they can reach it!
 
I would just get a few live traps, Put catfood or an egg in them for bait. Put them in locations you can see from the road or fence lines. See if you can hire a neighbor kid to drive by and check them from their vehicle. You will be surprise how many raccoons and skunks you can catch.
 
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