The whole pseudo science nonsense is mind boggling.

Supposedly catching and killing coyotes and raccoons means that they go into high gear and reproduce like crazy.



Even common sense will tell you that is crap.

If that was the case then we would have had some mass ecological destruction by surplus raccoons during the fur boom years.

Almost everyone was out trying to cash in on 50 dollar raccoon ( 160 bucks in today’s money). Around 4.5 million raccoons were harvested nationwide in 1985 according to a few different sources ( I did google it) .



We are lucky if 500,00 are harvested in a year now . Why do we have a raccoon problem now instead of during the fur boom years??



The antis eat up the pseudo science crap because it sounds good..

these so called wildlife experts are hired guns by animal rights organizations.



The same organizations who should be indicted in federal court for fraud and funding terrorist activities.

Animal populations will meet the carrying capacity of the land.Overpopulations unchecked will lead to habitat destruction and or widespread disease that can decimate wildlife populations and it can take a long time for them to come back depending on how severely they have been pared back and how widespread the habitat has been negatively effected.
When supporting habitat is intact prolific animals like beaver and rats can come back very quickly as most of the young will survive and reproduce.
Predators after culls or control programs can also come back quickly to meet the available carrying capacity.
The land can only support so many animals and overpopulations will be cut back naturally leading to boom and bust cycles.
Managed populations can flatten the sine wave.
nature will always seek a balance one way or the other regardless.
Everything is much better off if man takes the excess that is always produced each year beyond the carrying capacity.

Darn sine wave.

Yes, and excessive pressure (such as overharvesting when the fur prices are high) driving the population significantly below the carrying capacity will mean that individuals that produce bigger litters will leave more progeny, all other factors being equal. When the habitat is overcrowded, producing big litters is NOT beneficial and other factors come into play, because the "excess" progeny won't have the opportunity to establish because all habitat is already taken and there's not enough food/space for everyone, and producing bigger litters is more energy-expensive for the parents.

So yes, while trapping/hunting pressure doesn't exactly put the animals into "high gear", some species will gradually "respond" to considerable trapping pressure (or predation for that matter) by having bigger litters. This is why once the pressure is removed (like it happened in late 20th century, when the oil lobby/greenies "canceled" fur, some species capable of producing huge litters rebound and even become abnormally numerous. Because for many generations, selection influenced by the human factor favored individuals capable of producing big litters.

It's not bad science per se, it's just how populations work. It absolutely doesn't mean that populations shouldn't be managed, just the opposite.

Very true why we record our marten ratios.
Nothing worse than having marten go to 300 bucks and having none to harvest.

if there are two of them........is that sinuses ??



Foxkidd44 : possibly you misunderstand what the idea of compensatory reproduction is saying.

If the density of a canid population is lower than previously....that means there is more food for each mouth in the population and ,consequently , higher ovulation rates in the females (not the males ))) due to improved nutrition and greater survival of more pups because of a greater supply of food per pup.

I have no idea about raccoons but would think it is similar. We see the same thing in twinning rates of moose as well as brown bear populations when only boars are harvested.

There's a local land owner (retired as a farmer and now an agri-businessman) in my area that raises a lot of beef cattle that free graze a large amount of timber/pasture area. He never has allowed me to trap/snare HIS coyotes because they never bothered his HIS livestock. He claims why kill a strain of coyotes that doesn't bother HIS calves and have an outsider band of troublesome coyotes move in. And yes you have to be "one of the chosen few" ( not the motorcycle club) that can hunt HIS deer! Man wouldn't say he was wrong if it slapped him in the face.

Sure doesnt seem to work that way for Muskrats unfortunately.

Muskrats are extremely prolific when conditions are right.(water and feed)

I could be wrong but I suspect muskrats fluctuate with water levels. At least it seems that way up here.

Lower predator populations usually equates to more of their prey species available which in turn means more food available to those predators....which means healthier parents and litters that will lead to higher predator populations.

foxkidd44,
Read further than the first chapter. You may learn something new.

Edit: I see where White17 already educated you...before I posted this....

Couldn't agree more. Everything you and Boco said is spot on, just common sense, IMO.

Wildlife management is a soft science. Lot of variables.

Sure is ^^^^^

As is all biological science.

Now I can't speak for coyotes, but with wolves he'd stand correct, around here anyways.
But once they start, the whole pack has to go.

Kill the large rack deer while leaving the runts to breed.

Another click Bait post

Make it stop

Nobody is twisting your arm to read ANY of my posts.
And I was the one being accused of negativity.

You are negative, weather you see it or not
Maybe you should have read the Iowa red fox study and you wouldn't have had to post this
And maybe finish the article before coming to a conclusion
Or maybe just some comprehension classes

Making nonsense post's is coonmans job around here
We Love you coonman

Had that for years here and still no muskrats.

PAs muskrat problem is a head scratcher for sure
I think it's a combination of many factors keeping the muskrats from coming back in numbers
JMO

Right, I feel the same, many factors. Bocos answers are always so cut and dry LOL.

[/quote]
You are negative, weather you see it or not
Maybe you should have read the Iowa red fox study and you wouldn't have had to post this
And maybe finish the article before coming to a conclusion
Or maybe just some comprehension classes

Making nonsense post's is coonmans job around here
We Love you coonman
[/quote]

What is nonsense to you, wasn’t to me,, and I made the post as I understood it.
I do thank the individuals who were kind enough to help better explain it to me.

I don’t know what your agenda is to keep hounding me,, I’ve done nothing to you or anyone else on this forum,, I’ve never ran anyone down.
As I said previously,, don’t like my posts,, don’t read them!!!

I have a compromise foxkidd
If you don't post it, I won't read it

Go pound sand!! Got it!!

That wasn't very nice
And where would you suggest I pound said sand?

Must be that a cult shop in town. Foxkidd you gotta get out of that place!

You can have great habitat for animals but if it is too fraagmented or non contiguous small mammals like rats will never get to it.
Its the same here with marten and clearcut logging,You can have the best marten habitat in the world but if you trap it out and if dispersing animals cant get there or get predated on by raptors or other predators before they get there its useless.

Can you imagine if we still had the post counter...how many more useless

Posts would show up....

Ironically,,, there’s more folks than myself who have a tendency to respond to practically every single post on here… talk about trying to scream for attention or post count going sky high.

There are plenty of way more useless posts on here every day than what foxkidd posts.

In My Humble Opinion of course.
Get it? Thats one there.

Look at all the T-man stars that replied to foxkidd
White,Pete Dirt Tatiana,
You guys could just dream to be that lucky.

If the marten can't get there because of terrain
How did they get there in the first place?

God put them there.

You still don't understand yet, I'll make it simple
There's no stupid questions
But some people are s......

You so funny

Well you asked a stupid question,I was just being nice.

O
Part of the problem, and what I thought foxkidd was complaining about, is that so many animal rights groups don't read past the first chapter. Or ignore it, because it doesn't support the narrative they want. They use it as a "scientific proof" that managing via trapping or hunting doesn't work/isn't necessary. I have read multiple articles where "scientists" are quoted as saying that trapping/hunting is counterproductive because it causes predators to produce more and causes higher populations. These are the same people that the next week will claim that hunting/trapping needs to be shut down to protect "threatened" populations. They use whatever argument they think will work best with their audience, regardless of how contradictary it is with other arguments they have used in the past or will use in the future.

Reading comprehension? He pretty plainly stated that they couldn't get there due to clearcut logging. They were obviously there before the clearcutting took place. I see the same thing here. But will state that I prefer clearcutting to commercial thinning, because clearcuts grow back into thick cover much faster than commercially thinned timber, and provide a tremendous amount of feed when they do grow back. While commercially thinned timber is also undesireable habitat to many animals, and regrows cover much more slowly.

As far as coyotes, this all centers around the conneley longhurst model.in 1975.

If you actualy read it you will see its not possible in real world applications
Thats why it is a if then simulation. If a certain set of asumptions are true then this could be the outcome

Problem is the 8 asumptions they used to finally get the desired results

are just not going to happen.

As for click bait, I thought the title was pretty clear to open a short discussion. Click bait is a stupid title with no frigging info.

Antis or anyone for that matter, not looking at the bigger picture. Step out of your boots and look at the fight as an observer just for a minute, you’ll learn something. Look at their side and learn why they’re fighting you…….some are just nuts and there’s no talking to them, those are the loud ones who get all the attention. Same thing for both sides.
A lot of these new biologists were schooled by teachers who were schooled the same way. Not too many actually give a lot of time in the field and observing what they learned and adjusting it. It’s hard nowadays to find biology books that don’t fit one sides narrative, but they’re out there.
I’ve had a few rare discussions on social media where we kindly parted ways agreeing that we both loved wolves, just saw different management strategies……very rare though…..lol

97% of scientists agree with who ever is funding them,,,

With coyotes, when speaking of their capacity to predate fawns, research has shown removal of adults may trigger increased litter size, but the population will then consist of more younger, less experienced hunters that most likely will not predate fawns at the same rate as more experienced age classes would be capable.

As far as not seeing this back in the late 70’s and 80’s when fur bearers were trapped and hunted very hard, we probably were seeing it but didnt know it. In my area, trappers - including me - were running traps by day and running coon hounds by night. Many were not so conservation minded back then. I know for a fact the same creeks and bridges were trapped all season long. If one trapper pulled out, another soon moved in. We were literally trying to catch the last coon on the creek. Yet next year, we would catch just as many doing the same thing. It would be interesting to see the results if we could compare coon litter size in 1976 to 2026

Bs on coyotes

A little bit better answer than "Proper food and water conditions". I was talking about animals kicking birth rates up a notch when populations are low. If that was the case they would be having 20 young born 15 times a year around here.

I am just conveying the result of a years long study - I believe in south carolina. I think when considering animal behavior, it is all too common to base one’s knowledge on anectdotal evidence and local or regional behavior. I own 350 acres and thought I was doing a fair job managing the deer on that acreage. I bought an additional 62 acres in the same river bottoms, 8 miles away, that managed nothing like my home property.

Lot of probability in wildlife science. The probability is high this will happen, but maybe not.

All wildlife biologists with any integrity should begin their lectures with, "I don't know", and end them with "I don't know."
The best ones avoid "always" and "never" in their dissertations.
Sadly, even then, their work is bastardized by idiots with agendas not based in fact.

For those who remember our good friend Gulo...Jack Whitman.........you may also remember his tagline on this forum.

"......On the other hand........"

Theres one old wolf biologist that states regarding the wolves on Isle Royale that the more they learn, the more they realize they don't know.

Jack was working on a wolf book before he left us. That would've been a good one.

Jake: This is a book that Jack thought highly of. It is packed with facts, observations, theories, life histories, and so much minutiae that a guy needs to read a page and take a day to think about what he just read. Everything from different sounds to different tail positions on wolves. Super detailed

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226516970?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

I believe I saw gulo once at BOG meeting where the fix was in to do private sector black bear control here. I got the impression he didn't trust us cheechako's not to screw this up?

He appeared to be a research biologist that was not an absolutist.

You need to read the study again......

Thanks W17! That’s actually the 2nd wolf book I bought. Excellent read and so far has been the best. Mech is one of those that hasn’t bashed trapping as a management tool. I’m on another one of his books and they’re good.

W17, I've got that one, and it has a lot of information in it, but I figure Jack's would have been better. Or at least I would have trusted his observations more.

Shakey, thing about that book is, Mech does not bash trapping, but a whole lot of the book is a collection of studies and reports by a bunch of different researchers, and one needs to pay attention to when you switch reading from one researchers project to another. Some of them it is pretty obvious by reading between the lines that their research leans with their bias. (this is a common phenomenon of researchers, regardless of which way their bias leans) Luckily the book contains their data as well as their conclusions and even the methods of obtaining the data, so you can read through that and get your own conclusions.

For sure BC. I like it when they put in brackets if something mentioned is theory/educated assumption, or fact. Mech also stresses if observations were collected with wolves in confined spaces like a zoo. Totally different animal. A lot of the European studies are from captive wolves.........pretty much useless.
Jacks book would've been the best because of the real time he spent living in their domain. Trappers also just have a different way of seeing things, probably more observant of the little things that others overlook.

Wlhen I majored in wildlife ecology we did several population studies using models for my statistics. I liked ecology because it was a "very loose" science. One study we did was fyke netting a 416 acres flowage for pike populations. In 6 days with 3 nets we handled well over 1,000 pike. We fin clipped the ones we captured so we could use that as part of our estimate. We estimated that the pike population of pike over 22 inches was 741 pike = or minus 252 at the 95% confidence interval or a range from 489 to 993. It seems counter to one's thoughts that the higher the confidence interval the "wider the range". That is due to the fact that one is trying to get more certainty about the number. From the studies I have reviewed it seems predators rarely are able to eliminate prey species when habitat for the prey species is adequate or good. As to rat populations during the fur boom of the late 70s and earlly 80s we here in the Midwest had almost a decade of wetter than normal and thus a huge habitat area for rats. Also species such as coyotes, coons and whitetail deer benefit significantly from the intervention and or actions of man and thus it makes things more difficult to measure, but over time models can be created that can better work with the outside influencers.

Bryce

^^^^
Well, for me, that clears up the meaning of the OP's thread title...
Sheesh!