Furbearers like the river otter, fisher, beaver and bobcat were once gone, or almost gone, from the Pennsylvania landscape. But, with boosts from reintroduction programs and modern wildlife management, they’ve returned and have continued their comeback to that point that expanded seasons are being considered by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Veteran Catskills-area trapper Shawn Coston had his best year ever trapping bobcat this winter, finishing the season last weekend with seven to his credit – a number that the state Department of Environmental Conservation says is “extremely rare.”
Bobcats are elusive and “the (annual) average take per successful trapper hovers around 1.5,” said DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino. “According to DEC’s trapper survey, approximately 1,200 trappers pursued bobcats last season (estimate based on a subset of trappers surveyed). That season, there were 145 successful trappers, indicating that as many as 85 percent of trappers who targeted bobcat did not get one. Even if the survey overestimated the number of bobcat trappers, it’s still safe to say that a majority of trappers do not take a bobcat each season.”
Many deer hunters must now consider potential impacts of coyote predation on local deer herds. Historically confined to the western United States, coyotes have expanded throughout the eastern states and are now common across most landscapes we manage for deer. This expansion has obviously generated a lot of interest from the public, and the coyote’s ability to prey on deer makes their presence a primary consideration for deer hunters and managers. Coyotes are one of the better studied animals in North America, but most research has occurred outside of the eastern and southeastern United States.
During 2009-2011, we studied coyotes in northeastern North Carolina, and during that same time other studies on eastern coyotes revealed interesting information about coyote ecology and how coyotes could influence deer populations. The findings of these studies provided the impetus for what we refer to as the Tri-State Coyote Project, which was a cooperative effort across three states and multiple agencies. Funded by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division, and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the objective of the Tri-State Project was to study coyote populations at broad spatial scales and learn how coyote populations are structured on the landscape. Moreover, we wanted to assess prey selection of coyotes to determine potential impacts of coyotes on local deer herds. What we found has important implications for deer hunters.
While Valentine’s Day has come and gone for folks in the Northeast, its safe to say romance, and in this case, gland secretions, still linger in the March air for many of the region’s wildlife populations.
Being in the wildlife control industry, mid-February tends to signal a spike in my phone usage and “windshield time” with calls of pungent odors in the crisp night air and depredation issues on livestock with Tasmanian-devil-like pandemonium. It spells an important milestone time of year for two prominent members of the mammalian super-family Musteloidea - specifically the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) and the American mink (Neovison vison). Why the sudden spike in activity during this time of year? Breeding season of course!