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.