sort of a WI question or that is how I am asking it but what is your opinion doesn't much matter where you are at.

what are your pros and cons to extending Raccoon hunting and trapping till 3/31?

what are your pros and cons to extending Coyote trapping till 3/31?


the nearest season is youth turkey 4/13 this year

currently Raccoon trapping and hunting end 2/15 as does coyote trapping.

coyote hunting remains open year round.

I get that late season fur has little value but that is sort of a multiply by almost zero raccoon fur already has little value.

I have heard arguments for trapping nest predators shortly before bird nesting seasons being beneficial.

mostly I get to this time of year and think hey I have a few free weekends just as all the seasons are closing.
the ice stinks but not quite open water fishing time yet.

WI licenses are valid through 3/31 why not just extend the seasons till 3/31



EDIT ADD RESOLUTION :
here is what I am thinking for a resolution statement

Studies are showing that late winter and early spring removal of nest raiding predators benefits nesting birds.
Fur prices are at or near record lows, DNR reports show Raccoon harvest at >50 year lows , there is little incentive to harvest raccoon at these prices and they are a significant nest predator and nuisance.
Coyote Hunting season is already open year round state wide.
Making Raccoon hunting season open year round to match as well as extending trapping of Raccoon and Coyote from Feb 15th till March 31 on all lands would provide tools to help maintain habitat as well as remove agricultural nuisance raccoons and coyote.
in addition allowing landowners to designate a licensed trapper to control nuisance raccoons and unprotected species on their lands during the closed season.
Under current law if I do not live at my cousins farm I can not hunt or trap raccoon when they become a nuisance out of season.


Do you support
-making Raccoon hunting open season year round.
-extending Raccoon and Coyote trapping till March 31 of each year.
-allowing land owners to give permission to a licensed trapper to trap nuisance raccoon, coyote and unprotected species on their behalf at any time on their lands.

I'd be on board with the 'coon trapping extension so long as the trapper is limited to enclosed trigger traps. For the most part that would negate the majority of possible nontarget catches. Note: majority

For coyote I could see "cable restraints only" for the same reason.

Good read here:

https://deltawaterfowl.org/predator-management/

They extended our seasons an extra month but no one is trapping anything but the beaver that was already open until mid April. Not much interest in trapping worthless fur.

what about just a no conibear restriction and no traps capable of reaching water greater than 6 inches deep.

that was one of the articles I had seen.

Alabama has recently opened coon for year round trapping. They've never had a closed season for coyote or beaver.

Just makes it easier for landowners to kick us out of farms for fur trapping during the best time of the season.

what makes it easier for them to kick you out for what and why?

them saying hey you can trap Jan8 till March 31 I am bow hunting till the last day bow season Jan 7?

No closed seasons on raccoons, fox, coyotes, badgers, skunks, badger, possums or jackrabbits here I’ve sold coons caught during the beaver season that to my surprise brought a fair price. In some places rats, beaver and a few areas mink have no restrictions . Other species have true seasons like bobcat, mink and weasel.

Trapping has the least impact on things here Mother Nature calls the shots in so many ways.

Pretty much. Unless those places are convenient to me they will get ignored without extra incentive.

I’d say in today’s market, there is no reason that season shouldn’t be extended. Let the trapper determine when fur reaches no value.

I am not thinking this is going to be major game changing , just a can't hurt, just a why bother closing it when people might go hunting because the ice sucks and they don't watch sports ball.

I agree with Delta's predator management recommendations, but didn't see anything in that link about shortly before nesting season. I am not against trapping right before and during nesting season but every predator removed in Oct-Jan is just as dead and gone during nesting season as one killed in April-June.

True, but I think the timeline of immediately prior to would have its greatest impact on the area trapped for the duration it takes for the void to be filled. So maybe nest predator management should focus on the better nesting habitats at that time. General fur trapping is well more generalist.

I don't recall the article that I read that they found trapping around nesting sites just before the nesting season was the best effect for nest safety that while a raccoon caught in December or January was just as dead it gave the remaining population time to fill in and occupy prime nesting habitat.

as a tool in the toolbox of outdoors people to make a difference to the nesting situation, fur prices in the basement and fewer activities competing for time in the February 15 to March 31 time frame.

honestly I could see guys go Turkey hunting Moring and evening and go make some coon calling stands in the middle of the day. same camo , gun ,ammo would work just fine.
I haven't done a lot of turkey hunting but what I was with for we called coyotes well into rifle range that messed up the turkey stands we were on. to the point that bringing a rifle with for the coyote especially when the caller didn't have a tag to fill for that weeks season of turkey was discussed that was two years ago I didn't get out last year.

Coyote is already open year round. I know a few people who have shot a coyote on their turkey stand with their shotgun one even got a coyote first sit and turkey second.
either extended Raccoon or year round raccoon would be fine with me.
if your opening up coyote to hunting year round why take trapping off the table while no other season is going.

If I remember right delta waterfowl predator control experiment involved some serious reductions in predators? Having a longer season where few people participate will not likely improve nesting success of ground nesters.

so it works it doesn't work no harm, if it is closed it has no chance of working.

guaranteed failure if you never try

we had a sustainable harvest of raccoon in the hundreds of thousands a year as high as a million at times based on fur buyers reports of the past.

we harvest a fraction of that now.

are we going to make a major change overnight , no but by having no opportunity to even try you are sure to not be able to make a change.

why restrict it at all if your worried about not even getting any participation?

When I trapped for Delta Waterfowl, we were trapping from 15 March to 15 July. Just before and through the main nest season. I could save any fur I wanted and mid to late March some coon were not worth skinning here in ND.. Others were good quite a bit later. After mid April more were not worth skinning than were good. Even trapping full time for 123 days, it was hard to improve the nest hatch percentage much. If you don't clean a high percentage of the predators out, about all you are doing is changing who ate the eggs on what day of incubation. The average person will not trap hard enough to make any real difference. Yes they may have a few nests hatch that would not have, but it just is a drop in a bucket.

You could make them open season all year long like they did here in Iowa but that didn't help at all. Maybe you need a bounty program so people will participate. You're not going to get anyone killing serious numbers to help reduce populations without any monetary motivation. It's hard to make any money at current fur prices without multiple markets for the odd parts and very few are going to part out coon carcasses.