Wildlife

[mlh]

Late this afternoon I set and watched a flock of turkeys slowly make their way up a ridge less than a hundred yards from my easy chair. It was getting dark and several flew up in the white pines to roost. I thought back to when I was young. There was no turkey, deer or bear here then. The only game we had was squirrel, rabbits and quail. There are now more deer than rabbits. We have plenty of squirrels and no quail. I would love to hear a bobwhite calling in the afternoon this spring but I know it’s not going to happen. We know to never leave anything a bear might eat outside and never leave a trash bag in the bed of a truck you like.
I was wondering how much difference others have seen in the wildlife in your area. I’ve lived on the same little farm all my life so the change is obvious. So what change have you seen?
Lynwood

[AZ Traveler]

Lynwood,

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is the most successful in the world. It has saved many game species that were almost wiped out in the early 20th century by market hunting. The biggest challenge today is loss of habitat.

I live in a suburban area with deer, bobcat, mt lion, javelina, coyote and lots of quail and dove through the yard on a regular basis. No turkey in the yard but much larger numbers than the past. Occasionally see a bear. Wildlife has made a great comeback thanks to our state wildlife agencies. Today is clearly the "good years" for hunting and wildlife.

AZ is probably the best quail state in the country with multiple species although no bobs. I get out with the pups at least twice a week with a lot of great areas within 15 minutes. The vast majority of land here is public and open to hunt.

[Lee-CI]

Bobwhite populations in North Texas have been decimated by fire ants. We used to have dove like flies, but thinking they have been way over hunted. I can only smile and shrug my shoulders when neighbors complain about the lack of deer, for the DW and I watch them near our yard multiple days per week. I no longer hunt (DW won't eat "Bambi"), but I'm the only one I know of in the county who plants a deer food plot each year within 60 yards of the S&B. Neighbors only put out corn feeders and wind up feeding raccoons instead. Don't even get me started on the wild hogs. I've seen them totally decimate a 150 acre winter wheat field literally overnight. Fishing is still really good, so no complaints there. We've seen deer, hawks and falcons raised within rock throwing distance, and of all things a pair of turkey vultures raised their chicks in our open front barn this year. I do sorely miss the cooing of dove and the whistling call of bobwhites. All in all we've been blessed though....

[mlh]

Our wildlife agencies have done a fabulous job of restoring our wildlife. We have a elk season in Virginia. Elk were stocked at the Peaks of Otter on the Blueridge Parkway many years ago. We had a pair on the property one fall when I was a kid. When we built our home 45 years ago I walked down through the woods about a hundred yards from our home and found a deer track. I ran back to the house to take my wife back so she could see it. Another thing I miss is groundhogs. There aren’t any, none on the farms we hunted 10 years ago. I’m a groundhog hunter. The Coyotes have done what we wouldn’t do, kill all the groundhogs. I went hunting once this summer. We could see over a mile both left and right and 850 yards in front of us. We didn’t see one groundhog. We hunted the same place about 10 years ago and got 6 or 7 between 750 and 800 yards. We came back the next summer and didn’t see any groundhogs where we had hunting before. I wondered why and after a while figured the coyotes has wiped them all out. I had a retirement plan groundhog hunting. That didn’t work out.
Lynwood

[twindman]

Growing up in Iowa I never saw or heard of anyone that saw a wild turkey. I have seen them several times on my trips back lately.

[RMcNeal]

I live in a subdivision in east Jacksonville, Florida. I'm about 3 miles from the ocean.
In the past few years, we are starting to get packs of coyote making rounds in the wetlands and woods surrounding our subdivision. I've actually seen them running down the street!
Coyote are nothing new to me as I deer hunt every year in northern West Virginia and the coyote, timber wolves and black bear are thick up there, but this is the first time in 55 years I've seen coyote in our neighborhood.

[Mikendebbie]

We live out in the country northeast of Austin in an agricultural area called the Blackland Prarie…”flat-ish” farmland. Over the last 10 years I have seen more red-tailed hawks and crested cara caras than ever. Beautiful birds. My neighbor has lots of chickens, ducks, and turkeys. He is not so fond of them as they occasionally take his chicks.

Our 2.5 acre lot was cut out of a 80 acre corn field 20 years ago. We started planting trees and now we have a forest surrounding the house. A couple of years ago - mysteriously a rare black squirrel took up residence on our place. Soon after that we adopted a new dog - blue heeler/Aussie mix that can run right at Mach 2. He brought us a rabbit the first week we had him. The heeler caught that squirrel on the ground one day and that was the end of our black squirrel watching. DW witnessed it while I was at the office and she said it was quite upsetting to watch. However I don’t think that squirrel was “right in the head”. He had to cross 400 yards from a creek bottom across other folks grassy lots with no trees to get to our “island of trees”. When the heeler got after him - he tried to outrun the heeler rather than simply climb the tree he was under. I guess that is how nature deals things so that the strong survive.

I think the doves have all moved to urban areas. When we lived in central Austin there were hundreds of the living in the trees. The cooing at sunset was deafening.

[Lee-CI]

Mike - interesting take on the dove issue. I'm about as hick country as one can be and avoid large cities like the plague. Would never in my life have thought of doves following the path of pigeons and moving to the big cities! Just had another thought - nature is smarter that what we give her credit for...... No hunting in the cities, so dove all moved there!

[Daryles]

Deer season is over. Haven't seen any in a while, then yesterday evening 7 crossed the field downhill from the house. Nice to see. Sometimes they graze on the acorns in the front yard. The young ones butt each other and play tag. Funny to watch. Saw 2 quail the other day, haven't seen any in along time. 2021 summer saw some scissor tail fly catchers.
As for the conservation department...
They are a double edged sword.
They brought wolves back to Yellowstone. Very sad to see them chasing down buffalo and elk. Killing them (not eating). Chasing down and killing more for sport not for food.
They brought kudzu into the country. Ask Georgia how that turned out.
They brought in multi-floral rose. It is a scourge to farmers taking over fields. Its a constant fight to keep your fields clear of it. Same with Bradford Pear trees. I've seen entire fields taken over by them.
Locally, they reintroduced river otters to the 11 point river system. Now there are no fish in the river. Once there was thriving river fishing and floating businesses. Now there is only one left.
We had two catfish ponds. The otters cleaned them out. Not one fish left.
Now they are talking about reintroducing wolves and elk to the area. You may say elk are harmless. If you hit a deer with your car at speed it's survivable. If you hit an elk at speed with your car, you are not likely to survive. Elk are huge.
Reintroducing wolves, well I think you can imagine the problems...
Maybe these smart educated people should reintroduce them to the cities first before infesting us farmers with their good intentions.

[DutchmenSport]

I live in central Indiana, between Anderson, Pendleton, and Lapel (country). I'm an Indiana resident all my life and my parent's homestead is about 5 miles from where we currently live. Over the last 67 years of my life, I've seen Hamilton County (where my parents lived) change from farm fields to shopping malls and home owner's associations. Every square inch of ground that had a blade of grass growing on it is now covered with asphalt. It goes without saying, any wildlife that use to exist is now gone.

Where I've been living for the last 15 years hasn't changed much. It's still agriculture, but around us (within a couple miles) there has been a slow growth of new houses. And closer to Anderson, the Nestle Company complex area is growing and expanding (2 miles from where I live).

The animal life hasn't changed much where I'm living over these years. Coyotes still howl at night and occasionally I'll see deer tracks along the fence in my back yard. Not too long ago, I saw deer tracks in our back yard.

The birds are interesting though. We use to have humming birds. They are all gone now it seems. We are seeing more and more Cardinals, where as before, we never saw a single one. And most amazing, we're seeing American Eagles more and more.

I was told when we first moved here there was an Eagle nesting near by. I never saw it until a few years ago. And I don't know if it's the same one over and over again or an increasing family, but in the last couple years I've seen more Eagles in our area than I've ever seen through my entire life. And I've noticed other areas of Indiana have Eagles too. I guess I'm a sky watcher and not a ground watcher! I notice the birds.

[mlh]

Thanks Dutchmen. When I was a kid there were no hawks here. They were all chicken hawks and shot on sight. I can understand that. Chickens helped to feed your family. My wife and I came home after Christmas and saw a pair of, I think sharp shin hawks on a electric line on the property. There were no eagles. Now we regularly have bald eagles. They nest about a mile as the crow flies from our home.
Lynwood

[Daryles]

We have a pair of bald eagles nesting somewhere nearby. We see them fairly regularly. I'm not sure what this one was eating. Maybe a rabbit or squirrel. Picture taken from our deck.