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Is Your County This Bad?
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<blockquote data-quote="JB1230" data-source="post: 5350834" data-attributes="member: 7608"><p>Spot on. There's more to this than "they aren't doing anything.". Should TWRA cancel turkey season for a few years? Not what you want. A couple of things that are happening are, as Mike pointed out, is one - carrying capacity. Are we building more homes and feeding more people? Yes and that's "urban sprawl" which impacts habitat. I think even more impactful is that, number two is predator populations have exploded and ground-nesting birds suffer the consequences. Raccoons are enemy number one. You can kill all the coyotes you see but their impact is almost non-existent on turkeys compared to foraging raccoons and skunks. In the duck world, predation takes 9 out of 10 nests and the same is happening, I bet, to turkeys. Foxes are also bad on turkey eggs (they bury them) and poults as well but coyotes keep them at bay as coyotes hate foxes and will run them off. There's an argument that coyotes do more good than harm for ground-nesting birds. Do you/we put out corn for deer? If so we are feeding and increasing the populations of the enemy...raccoons. I used to get 13-15 raccoons on camera at night on one feeder. Hundreds of coons on a property like to do two things...eat and breed. They'll eat every egg they find, every night. It's amazing we have any turkeys when you think about the thousands of raccoons and skunks across the landscape and they are increasing. In addition, baby turkeys, before flight, (4-5 weeks) are easy pickings for hawks, owls and sometimes crows. I don't believe this has anything to do with TWRA and they've been good at restoring populations over the years. Fire ants are also hell on eggs and have decimated quail populations. Trap the heck out of your properties, kill your fire ants and leave native grasses to grow where you can. I wouldn't beat up the agency on this one but maybe lend a hand where you can. Just my two cents and take it with a grain of salt.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JB1230, post: 5350834, member: 7608"] Spot on. There's more to this than "they aren't doing anything.". Should TWRA cancel turkey season for a few years? Not what you want. A couple of things that are happening are, as Mike pointed out, is one - carrying capacity. Are we building more homes and feeding more people? Yes and that's "urban sprawl" which impacts habitat. I think even more impactful is that, number two is predator populations have exploded and ground-nesting birds suffer the consequences. Raccoons are enemy number one. You can kill all the coyotes you see but their impact is almost non-existent on turkeys compared to foraging raccoons and skunks. In the duck world, predation takes 9 out of 10 nests and the same is happening, I bet, to turkeys. Foxes are also bad on turkey eggs (they bury them) and poults as well but coyotes keep them at bay as coyotes hate foxes and will run them off. There's an argument that coyotes do more good than harm for ground-nesting birds. Do you/we put out corn for deer? If so we are feeding and increasing the populations of the enemy...raccoons. I used to get 13-15 raccoons on camera at night on one feeder. Hundreds of coons on a property like to do two things...eat and breed. They'll eat every egg they find, every night. It's amazing we have any turkeys when you think about the thousands of raccoons and skunks across the landscape and they are increasing. In addition, baby turkeys, before flight, (4-5 weeks) are easy pickings for hawks, owls and sometimes crows. I don't believe this has anything to do with TWRA and they've been good at restoring populations over the years. Fire ants are also hell on eggs and have decimated quail populations. Trap the heck out of your properties, kill your fire ants and leave native grasses to grow where you can. I wouldn't beat up the agency on this one but maybe lend a hand where you can. Just my two cents and take it with a grain of salt. [/QUOTE]
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