keith, have found memories of pheasant hunting in northumberland county in the eighties...
Ed, it was in the late 1980's that the Pennsylvania Game Commission made the insane decision to permit the harvesting of hen pheasants. They said the birds were not breeding north of Interstate 80. I knew that was bullshit because I frequently saw hens with broods of chicks in the summer months while out fishing or groundhog hunting. As a kid delivering my paper route, I often saw very large flocks in an area where stocking was not done. They wanted us to believe that birds which breed and survive the more severe climate extremes of the Dakotas now cannot breed in the milder climate of northern Pennsylvania... even though they had done so successfully for decades? It took only a few years for the population of native birds to crash, and for hunters to start complaining about poor bird numbers.
As I said, the geniuses at the PGC tried several things... except admitting that killing off hens was a very stupid mistake.
During the same late 1980's time period, it was a rarity for anyone to see or shoot a coyote in Pennsylvania. And hawks were not as common as they are now. Grouse and turkeys were still fairly plentiful, so I shifted my focus away from chasing stocked or non-existent native ringnecks. Then people started seeing coyotes where they had never been in years past. I also started finding piles of grouse and turkey bones and feathers that had obviously been consumed by predators, and other guys who spent any amount of time in the woods saw the same thing. Cottontail rabbit populations were down noticeably too, despite their prolific breeding. The same evidence of predators thinning them out was seen. It was probably around 1996 that I started hearing coyote howls at night in Forest County, and then finally saw them. They spread rapidly, and many feel they had some help due to pressure from Auto Insurance companies to reduce the deer herd. Now I literally shoot coyotes with a .22 rifle from my upstairs windows. But I don't have near as many groundhogs or rabbits eating my garden plants. Given a choice, I'd rather lose some broccoli and lettuce than have predators in such abundance.
Today I saw a lone spotted whitetail fawn hiding under a blue spruce tree 100 feet from my house. With no mama deer in sight, I figure it may be orphaned. With the local coyote population, I highly doubt if that fawn will survive long enough for my Amish Dutch neighbors to poach it. When game populations fall, there are often multiple factors including over-harvesting, poaching, disease, predation, pesticides, habitat loss, etc. I just call it like I see it, in spite of the fact that in 2023, we are expected to believe propaganda instead of reality.
