doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Report from the North Country

We have plenty of fox and coyotes here, just north of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I have been told they are here, but, I have never seen a gray fox. That includes the time from running a trap line a few years before and after school. I did discover that great horned owls have no pride whatsoever, and would happily land next to a skunk in a trap, walk over and kill it, dismember it, and eat most of it on the spot. A healthy red Fox in January was a $50 pelt in that era, a big ‘yote brought $75, and a skunk brought $5. Red foxes were the most successful at stealing the chicken heads I nailed to the tree above the set.

I was never too upset at the owl. Suspect my teachers weren’t, either.

Best,
Ted

We have a healthy population of reds and gray foxes around here. When you see more coyote sign, you see fewer fox.

My local farmers actually prefer to see coyotes, because they are more successful at killing woodchuck than foxes are.

Obviously woodchucks can really mess up a field of beans

Ted, RGS tells me that when they do large radio transmitter studies of adult grouse, at least half are killed by avian predators. That’s mostly in the context of Hunter impact additive or compensatory, but nevertheless, when they find a carcass after a mortality trigger, it’s about a 50-50 chance that the sign is the death came from another bird.

after turkeys an coyotes, next on the list of grouse Killin varmints are...owls...

Gordon Gullion had figured that out by 1962, without telemetry.

Best,
Ted

an clap, when them rgs types strap large radio transmitters on to birds, chances are even an ole hawk gonna ketch erm, bein dat day so heavy dat day cant fly fast no mo...one wood thank...

You’d be wrong, Ed.

The transmitters these days are so tiny, they weigh fractions of an ounce.

They place them inside Woodcock, and you can watch the migration online if you want.
The thing that people should be worried about is that we are entering The sixth or 10th generation of ruffed grouse that don’t seem to be responding to gigantic habitat increases across the range.

As early successional forest creatures, large scale, cutting due to economic expansion, theoretically should result in greater numbers of birds. But researchers are not seeing the evidence for that.

Additionally,
Michigan has launched a voluntary online reporting app in conjunction with their forest management department in an effort to better understand this relationship. Again, there is concern that grouse are not rebounding under current forest management rules.

If anyone is hunting MI, I’d encourage reporting via the app.

earth to mitch a gan...

hits calt...

clear cutting...

Ed, I hate to sound like a shill for the forest products industry. I'm not. I'm an informed sceptic.
Trees are a crop, much of which is owned by the people with more or less a sweet spot for returning value of about 50 years.
Our forest management plan takes into account all the stakeholders in an attempt to get the people fair value for their forests, not wasting them as they age out, and enhance the outdoor experience for others. That'd be us.
Forest products rely on a renewable resource with a long life cycle. They also Create a lot of employment in rural areas. The sustainable part is the part where you don't cut them all in one batch.

Clear cutting isn't the only treatment anymore. Sometimes the people get the best value with select cutting, and leaving big old trees to provide acorns, etc for wildlife. They'll leave drumming logs amid known shrubby fruit and food sources trying to improve grouse density as well.
Checker boarding smaller cuts into 25 year and 15 year cycles creates a ton of seemingly great habitat, but the numbers aren't showing up.

So, we ask that people report their harvest to get a closer idea of the relationship between forest rotation and grouse numbers.
Since my annual impact is small, I happily report.

Some days...