doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Turkeys in Grouse habitat?

Yep, there's a lot of that type pine land around here. When a pine plantation is harvested to yield that type result it is called a "plantation cut" , around here. Great for quail, especially. Old growth is especially beautiful when managed that way.

SRH

Stan, you've never seen fox squirrels in pairs? In Iowa, I often saw them chasing each other around like crazy.

As for the pines, they're likely one reason CRP didn't help quail much (if at all) in the Southeast. Trees can be planted instead of grass. Didn't happen much here in the Midwest, but I understand that it did in the South.

Re Eagles, DDT, and lead shot: Data on the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles doesn't show that the rate of increase was steady after the lead shot ban. For example, per FWS data there was almost no increase from 1999-2000 (from 6404 to 6471), and then only about a 10% increase from 2000 to 2005 (6471 to 7066). And 10% was about the annual rate of increase from 1987 (after the DDT ban but before the lead shot ban) to 1991, when lead shot was banned. With only one significant exception, that rate of increase remained relatively steady until 1999, at which point numbers flattened out a lot (only about a 10% increase in the 6 year period from 99-05.) Then, however, numbers took a HUGE jump: from 7066 in 05 to 9789 in 06. Makes me wonder whether there was a change in how the numbers were arrived at. That's a far larger jump than any other single year increase.

40 years ago there were no wild turkeys in Maine. Then, about a dozen or so were dumped down by Agamenticus.

Today, the #1 nuisance species in Maine is ... the wild turkey. That's per IFW. They're everywhere, particularly close to houses where one cannot hunt them.

Are Maine's grouse numbers up, down or the same as 40 years ago? I can't say for sure, but the overall sense I take from fellow hunters is "down". And that's factoring in the cyclic changes in abundance which have been there since forever. Yes, there are lots of other things affecting grouse abundance. But when a species goes from non-existent to #1 pest in 40 years, something has to give and that something is usually the species which were here before. Read up on the episodes of invasive species taking over ecosystems and the negative impact on prior residents is a theme repeated over and over.

Larry,

I lived most of my life in rural Iowa. The Red Fox Squirrel of the midwest is a totally different species from the Fox Squirrel of the Southeast.

Southeastern Fox Squirrel:
http://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelati...south-carolina/

Also known as Sherman's Fox Squirrel:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_fox_squirrel

Midwest variety:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_squirrel

The city park in Centerville Iowa had, when I was living there, a large number of the local Fox squirrels with a form of albinism making them blond.

John

We never see pairs of fox squirrels here. They are always solitary. Almost 100% of CRP in the Southeast went into pines. At first they would do loblolly, the preferred species for fast growth. Now, the only one they will allow is longleaf.

The #1 nuisance species here is deer, far and away. There were always some that lived in the deep swamps, but in the late '60s and early '70s they moved out "on the hill" and learned to cohabitate with people, to my regret. One has been coming inside my farm shop headquarters at night, going under the equipment shelter, jumping up on a 18 ft. trailer, and eating treated peanut seed that spilled onto the floor of the trailer.

Interesting that there is a red fox squirrel up north. We see fox squirrels here in several color phases, but never red. Thanks for the links, John E.

SRH

Same time here...the nasty ditch goats need to go

Stan, I've wondered whether or not the red phase is the same as "our" fox squirrel here in the south. They are beautiful animals and no two have the same coloration scheme and it is always a treat to see one loping along the ground to the nearest pine. A few wma's I hunt prohibit the hunting of them and that's okay by me. Gil

The southeastern fox squirrel sometimes called a red squirrel in the south and the midwestern fox squirrel are both the same species, Sciurus niger. They come in many coolor variations, hence the name.

Like Stan, I've never seen a red one. Usually shades of gray or black often with white on its face or ears. Always two toned coloration on squirrels I've seen. Gil