Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Land Conservation Perspective

Thought folks here might enjoy reading this article:

https://www.perc.org/2020/01/10/healthy-...BXCTADweLz6N0YA

I also posted it on my Facebook group for Midwestern landowner wildlife enthusiasts:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/442011656723370/

Thanks for the link RAH, it was a good read. Very relevant also.

Ditto

I am a big conservation advocate and make it known on my personal blog.

Our great American President, Teddy Roosevelt, declared that conservation “is the chief material question that confronts us, second only—and second always—to the great fundamental questions of morality,” exclaimed Roosevelt. Americans had “become great in a material sense because of the lavish use of our resources,” he explained and had “just reason” to be proud of what they had done. “But,” he intoned: "the time has come to inquire will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas, when the soils shall have been still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation. By planning ahead, he said, these could be avoided. "One distinguishing characteristic of civilized men is," he said. "We have to, as a nation, exercise foresight for this nation in the future; and if we do not exercise that foresight, dark will be the future!"

I read an account, from Teddy, about him taking a bull elk. He said that, in that area, there were very few left and he felt privileged to get the shot. I’ve always wondered about that. As a hunter, I don’t think I could have taken the shot.

He also said “ I’m not a very good shot so I just shoot a lot.” I resemble that remark.

I leave the turkeys on my place alone since they are far and few between. We have a lot of oaks coming along which I hope will help, but the coyotes are thick, as are the hawks, owls and raccoons (egg thieves). Now have bobcats more regularly as well. Tough being low on the food chain...

If we are not careful fishing and hunting will become a thing of the past in the United States, just look at Germany which has banned all catch and release fishing, because they claim it's cruel for fish to be caught, some of these people would call themselves "conservationists" I call them Socialists!

I believe your land your rights. But also like almost everything in life moderation is the key.

You do not want the Federal Government controlling our waterways there is no limit to where that could go. Your private pond that drains into a small creek that feeds a major river could get seized.

I most certainly do not like the current WOTUS rules and hope changes will ensue that allow me to proceed with some conservation projects on my land currently being obstructed by misguided bureaucrats. Check out my FaceBook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/442011656723370/

Look at the text under "About".

The King's land, the King's deer.

This is no different than any other thing.

The further away from local control the rules are made, the lesser individual rights are respected.

Wise, fair, and equitable management of fish and wildlife resources can not be accomplished at the federal level.

And that's enough politicing for me for one day. lol

RAH, get a predator control program in place and the turkeys will thank you. Especially the raccoons.

I have more obstacles thrown up by the county surveyer than the feds, if you can believe that. Seems to love his "small-town" power.

Neighbor normally traps my place but not with current low fur prices. The well-meaning armchair environmentalists don't seem to know a renewable resource when they see it and prefer plastic shell coats. I certainly have a lot of predators, but maybe the coyotes and bobcats will reduce deer density and help with all the diseases that are starting to appear in Indiana herds. I took my county limit this year on my place. Raccoons could certainly use culling to help the birds, including ducks. My neighbor did remove two colonies of trouble-making beaver. Our dogs even love eating the beaver meat (muskrat too) but will not feed them raccoon due to possible distemper (not really sure of the risk).

How does a surveyor have any input other than marking boundary lines ? I could see where in a small town he might hold some type of government office and then be able to have some influence. I read some where that coons will also affect fawn survival.

I am gun shy when it comes to giving any access to any government official to my place. Been my experience that some lean toward being socialist minded and don't like the idea that I own land and they don't.

Surveyor issues pond permits and wanted multiple "studies" conducted at my expense even though plan was drawn up by NRCS. Also would not give me an exemption for an open geothermal heating system due to water use even though the source of water was going to be an artesian well that dumps water on the surface anyway. Just hired a contractor from outside the county to put in a regular high efficiency heating system instead on the original contractor from within the county to ensure no additional tax money went their way. Also put a bunch of our land into the Wildlands program so property taxes would be dramatically reduced when they tried to tax woodland in a floodplain as "excess residential". Represented myself in the state hearing where they referred to the county tax assessor's actions as "disturbing" when they reached a judgment in my favor. -end rant-

Rah, we have a wildlife program in Texas. If not my taxes would be like a residential/luxury tax. But, you can only get it if you have previously had a grazing exemption. When it became available, I immediately sold my cows and let the neighbors worry about fence repair.

We have to do 3 of 7 allowable things. In my case I provide brush piles for small animal protection when I cut firewood. I provide water for wildlife from my ponds. I shoot predators like coyotes but that doesn't make a dent in their numbers. I also provide supplemental feed for wildlife. I have to do an annual report and overload it with pictures.

If not for this program I couldn't keep the place. Yep, the County taxing people don't like it but can't stop it.

We also have to do an annual report telling of our conservation activities and brush piles are a part of it along with making vernal pools and invasive plant control. I would be doing all that anyway.

I have seen declining turkey numbers in my area in recent yrs, I primarily blame it on a mass influx of coons robbing nests, they don't have a chance to hatch, I have a coyote on my game cameras occasionally but I don't think they are thick enough, (right in that area) where my farm is to be the cause, coons on the other hand, are thick as all get out, nothing to have several at a time on cameras, with fur prices down they don't get trapped or hunted anymore. I aim to make a difference in their populations in the near future, somehow.
As for bureaucracies controlling local land, don't get me started on that, I was thinking the WOTUS thing has been pretty much downgraded, a national association I belong to fought that pretty hard back in the days when they were trying to enforce it. But we did have a subdivision here locally that the houses where we are building on, and some that already been built, were all of a sudden classified as being in a flood plain, although these houses and the land was on a hill 25 to 30 ft higher in elevation then the actual flood plain, some engineering Einstein in Dallas had decided to rewrite floodplain boundaries as he wanted to. Insurance companies were dropping homeowners due to their houses now being in a floodplain, They had to hire lawyers, surveyors and huge costs and paperwork to prove that they were 25 ft above any possible flood, 20 miles from any river. all because some irresponsible idiot 600 miles away, that worked for the government, decided to redraw some boundaries without having a clue what he was doing.

Sad but true...

The floodplain fiasco happened to us.

Daughter started biilding her new home right next to our pond. Half way through she found out she could not get a 911 address because where she was building was in a flood plain. That would not have been an issue, except the electric utility would not put electric in without a 911 address.

Not only that, the house we live in was changed to a flood plain.

So we had to hire a survey guy to survey the area and show it was not in a flood plain.

A few thousand dollars and several months later, all is well.

They had people around here that were suddenly mapped in the floodplains back about 2008, that had to hire surveyors to prove they are not, to avoid having to get flood insurance. Someone hundreds of miles away, who didn't know squat about the lay of the land, put them in a floodplain, and cost them thousands. You could be 150 feet horizontally from the river, and be on top of a 120 foot bluff, in a few cases. Hopefully, with better mapping, the next floodplain map will be better, but around here, we are still living with those bad 2008 maps. It doesn't bother me, cause I'm not selling, and don't have a lender.

Last week I purchased a dozen DP coon traps and 1/2 dozen traps for coyotes. This week I will be getting the 'yote traps prepped for trapping. With the population levels here, something has to be done, low fur prices or not. Multiple coon and multiple coyotes in the same picture on the trail cam tells me that some thinning is needed.

Last year between myself and my neighbor, we trapped 18 coon around his chicken coop. A neighbor not more than 1/2 mile away loves coons, feeds them, and even has the animal control services drop them off on his property.

When I can shoot a coyote with my 9mm pistol less than 30 yd. from my front door they need some thinning......

We have had a huge decline in wildlife numbers. 20 years ago, turkeys were abundant on my place. They are still in the area but no longer on my heavily wooded place. They show up some during the breeding season but leave to go back to a big ranch close by. Deer were much more abundant. Coyotes were everywhere. Small game like armadillos, coons, quail, bobcats and possums were almost daily sightings. Snakes of all kinds were something that we had to watch for.

Tarantulas and the large centipedes were something to be careful of. I saw one of each this year and got excited. We now have hogs but the snake and small animal decline started before they showed up.

Other than building a pond and riding 4 wheelers, I haven't changed much. Not a lot more people have moved into the area so I can't blame encroachment. We did have a 4 year drought but the decline started before that. I believe it was a factor.

I believe hogs have played a part in it. They will kill/eat anything. I have hog traps that are ignored.

Deer season was a bust this year. Due to a massive acorn crop deer seldom moved around. I saw one that I could have shot. It was a yearling doe.

Game cam pics at feeders and on roads tell me that I still have coons and coyotes but I never see them.

Over the last 30 years, we have had the opposite trend. Our conversion of farmland to wildlife habitat has had a dramatic positive impact on wildlife. My trapper neighbor has seen a more widespread increase in fur bearers as well which I attribute to wider adoption of conservation tillage facilitated by glyphosate-tolerant crops. Even during droughts, we have a lot of water for the wildlife on our place which I believe, in combination with development of dense cover, has kept our wildlife numbers high. The one counter trend is the prevalence of ground-nesting birds which I attribute mostly to high raccoon numbers. I am hoping fur prices will recover to incentivize trapping. I am not against others controlling predator numbers, but personally would like to see their fur go to good use. I have had to remove damaging beaver and muskrats though.

RAH, sounds to me the surveyor falls in that category I mentioned of being socialist minded and will do most anything to punish landowners. I'm telling you that today it's all over the place when dealing with government personal. I even ran across it when dealing with a local bank employee as we discussed taxes that I paid because of being a successful business owner. I dropped all my accounts with that bank.

More likely just power hungry.

DD1, think back 20+ years ago. Was the brush just as thick and dense as it is now back then? Turkeys don't like habitat that is as dense as your place is, they need to see and to be able to fly away from ground predators.

I remember as a kid we had rabbits all over this part of kansas. Now there isnt hardly any around.

How has the predator populations in your area changed over that time? We have a lot less quail, but a lot more hawks and owls on our place. Rabbit populations seem to cycle like normal here though, perhaps due to available thick cover.

Scott, the brush was actually much thicker. I'm going to selectively clear some that has grown up from when I had it dozed. I can't see that the predator situation has changed. That means coyotes in my area. We still have hawks but not as many owls. No eagles in the area.

Pigs have clobbered the snakes. I rarely see a rabbit and there aren't as many squirrels. A shortage of tree rats doesn't bother me.

Before clearing I was butt deep in quail but can't figure out how/why they existed on the place. But quail decline has happened everywhere in Texas.

Dave:

Wildlife love "edges". So by clearing land that creates many "edges" for them.

Instead of having a dozer come in is there a guy in the area that has a Fecon head on his skid steer? That chews up the brush and small trees into mulch. Let me see if I can find a picture or video to show you what I'm talking about.

I think the thicker brush is really cutting down the available area that the wildlife can utilize and still have a buffer sone away from predators. Think of a pond and having strategically placed brush piles and cover vs. weeds growing so thick that you have a hard time fishing in them over 90+% of the pond.

Here are 2 videos. The first one shows it going thru brush, the 2nd shows how it can chew up smaller trees. I have seen them large enough to take down and chew up 12" diameter trees. I know you have a lot of rocks and the operator will have to watch those, but it leaves a layer of mulch which will help things grow. Better for your area I think than using an dozer to push brush into piles and then having to deal with those piles.






There is an equipment rental place here where I can rent one, and I've used it to clear acres of brush and small trees (up to 6" dia. We don't have many rocks here and I was able to go about 2"-3" below the ground level to chew up the stumps and some roots. Throw on some high nitrogen fertilizer to help with decomposition, seed and there is the open area for wildlife.

Here's one last video.

Scott, it will one old goat with a chain saw, JD tractor with FEL, and some firewood/brush piles. Might get help from Grandson and his buddy. I want to do selective stuff. Then come in and plant wheat in late October. I’m also going to plant wheat in the pasture in front of the house plus on the cleared power line area that I showed you. The other areas are just too rocky

I’ll probably do some of it during our nice cool summer. Then plant in the Fall. Hoping the hogs don’t tear up the wheat areas too much. And, I am butt deep in hogs.

We tried the mulcher thing and it just pissed off the youpon and it comes back with avengance. Only good thing is that you can leave oak trees where a dozer would get the youpon but damage tree roots. Can’t till in seeds when using a hydro mulching machine

Dave the pigs were worse before the seeds sprouted but didn’t bother it after it came up

Pat, you mean Ilex vomitoria? I googled youpon and got a result I wasn't looking for.........

Dave, you are supposed to get smarter as you get older. We have this ability to make tools to make our jobs easier and faster. Remember once you have heat stroke you are liable to get it easier next time.

Or you could do like George G. did. Get a herd of goats and let them go to town in an area.

Heat stroke? I’ve had one and a case of heat exhaustion. Never again.

The heat exhaustion, the stage just before heat stroke happened about 3 years ago. In August I was loading rocks in my FEL to repair washed out roads. August and 103. I finished about 4:00 and came to the house. I sat outside and drank some water to cool down. Charlene made a pitcher of margaritas and, still outside, I drank 2 of them. Got up and headed to the front door. I fell twice, dead drunk, before I got to the front door. She helped me into the house and A/C. For about a month I was only good for 3 or 4 minutes in direct sunlight.

It actually lasted about 2 months before I could stand heat.

ESSHUP those machines are extremely nice and handy for woody undergrowth that has to go, it will mulchify the brush and leave it as a very beneficial ground cover to avoid erosion like would be much worse when clearing with a dozer. there are places for everything, places where a dozer is necessary but for just clearing brushy undergrowth the smaller machines are priceless, my preferred method is to clear strips with them, that way small animals and birds are always close to a thick protective cover but can venture from under it to feed.
We have a woody plant here local that they call a Russian Olive or Autumn Olive, but it goes by different names, the Government introduced it, why I will never know, but it is extremely invasive once it gets started and will pretty much choke out anything in its way once it finds a little opening to get started in. what used to be open land 20 yrs ago, if left unattended, cant even be accessed anymore by a human.

I hired two guys that had a Bobcat mulcher to clear out a couple of areas to where I could build a wildlife food plots. I wanted five acres cleared. It took them a month to clear what I wanted. The bobcat was always having some type or other mechanical problem. I am sure they spent more than they made on this project. After watching all this I decided there is no way I would buy one of those to throw my money into one of those money disposal units.

They are pricey setups.

I rented one for a week a few years ago. $3,500.00 including delivery and pickup. It did blow a line and they came out and replaced it. It does like diesel fuel, I was feeding it roughly 5 gallons per hour. BUT, in that 40 hour stretch of run time I cleared 2 acres and about half of that was packed with 4"-6" trees so thick that you had a hard time walking between them. The carbide teeth on the mulcher were pretty well rounded over, and I think it would have gone a lot quicker if the teeth were newer. Took everything down about 2" below soil level so planting could be done in that area.

gehajake, we have Russian Olive here too, and the next year I basal sprayed all the volunteers with Garlon. I have an area at the back of my property that is getting overrun with it, and it will be basal sprayed this Spring because they and Japanese Honeysuckle are becoming a problem.

esshup, the price sounds a little high to me. I can rent a 60+- hp excavator with a thumb and with a dozer type blade for around 4 to 5 thousand including delivery and pick up from bout 30 miles. Rental cost is for a couple of weeks as long as I don't go over 40 hrs per week. Then the price goes up. Using the thumb I can for the most part hand pick what tree or brush I want to move out. So I tend to leave any of the nicer of the small Oak trees when I go out to thin out an area. Its not that I use it for the same thing as what I want when using a mulcher but for the most part I like it better than I do the mulcher.

I used to quail hunt with my Dad from the mid 60's to late 70's. We had lots of Bobwhite quail, and never saw a coyote, and very seldom a deer. His last bird dog died somewhere in the early 1980's, and by then there were more deer around, and a few turkeys, and only a few quail.

He transitioned to deer and turkey hunting by the late 80's. Now there are way too many deer around, and hordes of coyotes that you hear every night. The deer have wasting disease. Lots of hawks too. There are still plenty of gray squirrels. Lots of wild hogs in some way out rural areas. We used to see a good many feral house cats, but it seems the coyotes have wiped them out. That's probably a good thing.

I have not heard a Bobwhite quail in probably four years.

Tracy, you are probably right, but when it's the only rental place within 100 miles that has one, there's not much that could be done. It was a 50 mile, roughly 1 hour trip one way for delivery.

I could have rented a backhoe from them for a month for that price.

Here's their current rental inventory, no prices though.

Wakarusa Heavy Equipment