Maybe PA residents can help me with this. As far as hunting, it’s pretty much always open season for coyotes of course…but also opossums, skunks and weasels. But NOT raccoons. They get a certain degree of protection. Is that because, at one point, their fur was worth more and they only should be taken when prime? Anybody know? To me, they seem like a problem species that needs more management.

Expanding the season doesnt help management. It might eleimnate some awkwardness when season is out yet the raccoons find their way into muskrat/beaver/mink sets the week after season closes. Good way to squeeze yourself out of properies if you want to trap raccoons for fur as landowners arent letting us trap here while deer season is on. When that is over, raccoon season is also over and if the season was expanded the fur is worthless, even when prices for raccoon were good. Ohio there is practically no closed season because of the way our nuisance laws read.

The problem of raccoon management is access, not seasons.

I guess I don’t understand then, why possums, skunks and weasels have a bullseye on them at all times then!

Politics get involved in certain species if they have a effective lobby that impacts the regulations in many states.

because they had cash value and possibly hound hunters would run them all year if they didn't have a season or that was a concern in the past. the already have summer dog coon hunts as long as it is a trial.

I have a resolution submitted and it went through edit with myself and the county rep this week and is ready for the spring hearing.

to extend our WI raccoon hunting season to match coyote at year round and extend trapping of raccoon and coyote till March 31.

not sure how your PA land owner laws are but here a land owner can hunt basically anything but deer , turkey and protected birds as long as they consider it a nuisance year round and in researching for the resolution a bit hidden from the normal regs book they can extend that to an agent in writing so long as the agent also has a valid small game and or trapping license depending on if hunting or trapping.

will it make a difference I don't know but the first step in any change is making it not illegal to try.

So true

Thats basically how the Ohio regs are, landowner or their agent may trap any animal, except protected animals, that is is a nuisance on their property.

It never occurred to me to ask permission to remove pest from my property or consider seasons. While I try to hit them hard when prime and in season to reduce potential problems later in the year any problems come up are taken care of promptly. I think all that is required it to report the removal within 24 hrs or something. Never figured anyone cares I killed a coon that was killing chickens or getting in my corn.

If your including hounds in this hunting proposal, I think you will find a fair amount of opposition. Landowners already have hounds running across their properties at all hours of the night without permission for neither the hounds or the hunters. Do you think it will be tolerated year round? And of course, not all hound hunters allow their dogs to run out of control; but there are more than a few that don't respect landowners.

If we are talking only of ir/thermal hunting, that is another situation... at least the landowner will have the opportunity to grant permission.

These are all my personal opinions and experiences.

No opinion on extending the trapping seasons with the current fur prices as it would benefit preditation of other wildlife. If fur prices rebound, not sure it's appropriate to dump additional non-prime fur into the fur pipeline. To address preditation issues a bounty system may be a better solution.

yup. but it's starting to change, slowly! in my area, disease got the coon all but wiped out.

Coyote hunting doesn't exclude houndsmen , we have a fairly active group of them in Green county.

it doesn't seem coyote hunting with dogs is a major concern , not sure it will be with raccoon either.

a bounty system might do a lot more but it is also tax payer dollars going to pay bounty.

this may not do a lot to reduce numbers but the first step in anything is to start by making it not Illegal.

Didn't take long for this post to be derailed, lol.

The law pertaining to coon is almost certainly due to houndsmen.

Pete, we don't have many pursuing coyotes with hounds here; but we do have coon hunters. Large blocks of farmers/landowners have already put (problem) houndsmen on notice that enter onto their properties will result in immediate call to the sheriff. Dogs running on the properties disturbing the peace at all hours may have consequences. This dispute has taken years to come to a head, but has resulted because individuals couldn't or wouldn't talk to each other and work within landowners' limits. As trappers, it works out well for us as landowners recognize they have coon problems and are asking trappers to unobtrusively help them with population control and crop damage. I can only hope that going forward that all the parties can begin to work together for the good of everyone. I haven't been in the area this winter but will be spending some time later this year talking with old and new neighbors to get a feel of the local attitudes and trapping access. Don't get me wrong, I have many good friends that are heavy into hounds and coon hunting and after 30 years, many of the area landowners too; so, I see both sides of the issue. I don't often tell someone asking for access to the property, no, except if they present themselves with an attitude of arrogance and privilege. Since I don't live on the property any longer, baying hounds at 3:00 in the morning and LGDs barking warnings no longer bothers me

Are there a lot of people targeting skunks opossums and weasels in your area where they would need to manage the population because if not their population numbers are probably doing just fine. Are raccoon targeted regularly? Probably stands to reason to put some laws in place for them then doesn't it? Maybe I'm wrong but thats how I always thought of it.

Not sure of y’all’s population but several properties we trap have had nuisance permits in the past and coon/possum trapping has been going on long before the year round season was passed. We catch the same amount of coons/possums every year. You’d think at least the possums would be in a decline with all the pinky possums caught with the females during the Spring, but we’ve yet to see a decline.

I guess it seems odd to me because I can’t imagine someone actively hunting skunks and weasels.

A lot of the no season rules are more to free up landowners to do their own pest control if the chance arises then requiring them to contact the game department to seek permission. It’s not anything to do with hunting/trapping as the pelts would be worthless most of the year.

I do skunks the year round here for the essence, pods and skulls with no impact on the population but Mother Nature will do more damage to wildlife than anything else.

100 oz of essence

Better hope someone does not mistake those for mini bottles of Maker's Mark

Fireball ..

Some of the game laws here are strange.
It came about this way on purpose.
It was an us against the misinformed polis contest.
To ask for a rewrite on anything is opening a can of worms
with a self-destructing lid.

I thought weasels had a season but that may have changed.

We are allowed to protect our property,
sweet corn, chickens, anything.

Groundhogs seem thin lastly, should we ask for a season?
LOL

Coon season goes longer than muskrat and mink in PA..

Yes. They gave us three sundays the past few years. Archery, rifle deer, and small game. But foxes, crows, and coyotes can always be hunted on Sundays. Groundhogs get sundays off I think

What state has a limit on coons but not bobcats that always seemed strange to me for several reasons.

For raccoons and some others, I have always assumed much of the closed season was a nod to ethical concerns? As in not catching a nursing sow with young pups in the den, leaving the young to die of starvation.

Right so wouldn’t that apply to all other lil babies?? Sorry guys this thread has gone far enough. And I still don’t fully understand

Land owners vs. hound hunters vs. fur trappers vs. nuisance trappers vs. tree huggers

Its a mess, I don't think anybody truly understands it.

I know many, myself included, who trap coons for the sole purpose of eliminating nest robbers, in order to enhance their turkey population. Some states, well at least one I hunt, offers a free predator control permit, largely based on this. You can still eliminate predators, after trapping season ends(on private land). If you live in a state that protects coons, they’re not protecting Turkey.

I’m not, nor will probably ever be super interested in turkeys. However I do recognize that raccoons play a huge part in their populations due to eatin up the eggs. My main concern with trapping in general has always been disease control. And of course fur is a beautiful by product of that.
Our state is in a bit of an upheaval due to the potential reintroduction of the pine marten, mostly from Turkey people. Just don’t see why three “trash” species have open seasons while raccoons do not. Rotten little midnight marauders!

@elsmacho28

I think the biggest reason that the racoons or trash pandas if you prefer didn't get unprotected species status like skunk and possum was that they had value until fairly recently as far as time it takes to change regs

houndsmen wanted them to run

trappers wanted them for fur

so they represented a resource more than nuisance while they were being used as a resource

When considering season times, you also have to take into account user group conflicts.