Curmudgeon

A perennial complaint. The guys who cut up their own deer but don't own a good size chunk of land tend to toss the remains off the road.

Yes, the eagles and osprey eating fish from polluted water have a lot of problems. The road kills shouldn't have any lead in it. That's why I suggested he use one. However, we do find a fair number of euthanized deer that were hit by cars. We reject them for eagle research unless it is a top of the head shot. Then we decapitate them.

Wooly - I'm sure you are right but would urge you to find one that had no lead in it - a road kill or one shot with a copper bullet.

I'm sorry for you. This happened to me 21 years ago. I reported all the serial numbers. Isn't there a hot list of stolen firearms that dealers and pawn shops must check? None of mine ever turned up.

First item: A response from one of my contacts (names were changed to protect the innocent): "Bill, the agency biologist from Maine, thinks that coyote carcasses are a huge problem for scavenging bald eagles in Maine. You may want to send him a quick email and ask him. Personally, I have had a tough time trapping goldens on beaver, skunk, and coyote carcasses. I suspect in my case, the birds could afford to be picky due to the availability of road kill deer and quite possibly preferred ungulate meat. Often times, it would be 48 hrs before I would even get a corvid to land on a coyote. Cows, moose, deer, elk all worked great. I'm pretty sure Mary caught a golden last winter on a beaver carcass. Those coyotes are definitely full of lead." Second - what I will call the Passed Through Fallacy: When there is an exit hole, a lot of people assume that the carcass is free of lead. Bullet design is really important in this regard. High speed lead bullets fragment. Even if most of the mass remains intact, they shed lead. The amount of lead needed to poison an eagle is microscopic. Here are some photos of jacketed lead bullets shot into ballistic gelatin. I am also including a Xray of a coyote carcass from a AZ brochure.

It is interesting that a couple of people have not seen any scavenging of coyote carcasses. I did see a large group of ravens over a pile for several days. While I did not witness feeding, I have to assume they did. It would be like seeing deer in a alfalfa field and not seeing them eat. You have to assume they did. We averaged over 10 road-killed deer consumed at each of our research sites last winter. That said, 2 sites ended last winter with the single deer put out as bait intact. So, there is a chance that you are not seeing any scavenging of carcasses by chance, or because of your location. We put bait where we expect avian scavengers to be moving. This has me curious. Do scavengers avoid feeding on the remains of predators, esp predators that may feed on them. I tried a couple of google searches but I could not express the question in such a way that I got any meaningful answers. I am going to email a couple of experts to see what they say.

Don't they eat dogs in some Asian countries? Coyote wouldn't be much different.

If the lake is frozen?

Many of you know I am a raptor enthusiast who promotes the use of non-lead ammunition to help protect eagles and other raptors. A few years ago I discovered a large group of ravens feeding on dumped coyote carcasses. Presumably the yotes were killed with lead ammo. Ravens and other corvids do not metabolize lead the same way raptors do. It takes more lead in their gut to get to similar lead levels as eagles. In other words, the same blood levels will kill or impair a corvid but it takes a larger dose to get there. There are a lot of wintering eagles in some areas of the state - including mine. There were no eagles observed feeding at this site but there may have been. I know some people dump their carcasses in DOT deer pits. I have seen them when acquiring bait for eagle research. I am curious about how you dispose of your carcasses, and whether you have ever put a camera on them to see what scavenges them.

FYI http://www.gundigest.com/article/truth-behind-knockdown-power

Interesting new study on how killing wolves affects livestock depredation. A quote: Their study is the largest of its kind, analyzing 25 years of lethal control data from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Interagency Annual Wolf Reports in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The researchers found that killing one wolf increases the odds of depredations 4 percent for sheep and 5 to 6 percent for cattle. If 20 wolves are killed, livestock deaths double. https://news.wsu.edu/2014/12/03/research-finds-lethal-wolf-control-backfires-on-livestock/#.Vc4FjfmYCAk

Good thing. I've carefully reviewed the avian impact assessments for about a dozen wind projects in NY over the years. Most are inadequate or poorly done. Sometimes the studies are poorly designed. Often they will survey for migrants on days when they aren't flying. One assessment was especially egregious. The migration surveys were too few and on bad days. It was clear from the data that the surveyor could not identify raptors in flight. The whole thing was trash. A cynic might wonder if they were trying NOT to find raptors. The scuttlebutt among some regulators was that the developer of the project with that horrible assessment - located in what I believe may have be the worst possible place to expose eagles to wind turbines in NYS (eagles: meaning both species, combined impacts) - was going to apply for a take permit for Bald Eagles. That project was abandoned after our involvement. However, the assessment was done by an international company that has done this work for many wind projects. Considering the quality of assessments I have seen, the idea that FWS would issue eagle take permits for 30 years when many projects likely had inadequate avian impact assessments before construction is bizarre, even offensive.

Good shots Wooly. Osprey are weird. They nest in fairly high densities in some parts of the state. In other parts - where there are good nesting sites and plenty of food - there are few or none. My area for example - Chenango, Otsego, Delaware - has very few Osprey but many Bald Eagles nesting. The balds are eating a lot of warm water fish which would also be easy pickings for Osprey. I was at an eagle banding next to Otsego Lake a month or so ago. Even though it is a cold water lake, there are warm water areas. The adult eagles were feeding mostly chain pickerel. One was carrying one around but the nest was full of heads. Warm water fish like bass and bluegills are easy for eagles and osprey to catch. I've been told that at Montezuma, the eagles eat a lot of carp. I get Osprey at my largest farm pond during migration. Sometimes I will find a fish head in a hedgerow.

My personal worst was killing a deer, field dressing it, dragging it uphill a half mile to home and arriving without my shotgun. It was leaning against the tree when I got back down the hill - a mile round trip for an exhausted hunter. The most dangerous mishap I know of in my family was when one hunter - in a tree stand - shot a buck in front of heavy cover. Unknown to him, another member of the family was tracking a deer through that same cover not far away. The bullet passed through the deer and hit the ground 6' from the second hunter - who was wearing plenty of orange but still invisible.

It isn't deer proof either. They will empty it in a night. Those things hanging beneath it are weights to close it at night.

For those of you not familiar with the term, it means taking photos with a point and shoot camera through a spotting scope or binoculars. I took these photos of Calliope Hummingbirds last week in Idaho with a cheap point and shoot and a very high quality scope. The bison photo was taken with the same equipment. The other photos I've taken over the years, mostly for documentation purposes.

Sorry for the double post. Jet lag.

I don't feed birds during the warm months because of bears. A pair of wrens decided to take up residence in a squirrel proof feeder. I left a camera on it while I was away. These are a few of the shots I found when I returned. Note the bird on the feeder. One beam? Momma wren with food for her babes.

It is raining in Idaho and the grandkids are napping. I just watched the video. I've seen it before and had extensive discussions with my daughter about this. She is a prof at a college in CO. Her ecology Ph.D disseration is on riparian ecosystems in the Rockies. While most of her research was further south, she knows more about the impacts of wolves in Yellowstone than any of us. She told me that the concepts in the video are true but simplified. There are some areas that have not had the same level of benefit. This same information has also be disemminated through a lot of published articles. While we were in Yellowstone this week, we paid particular attention to the streamside vegetation. The willows in narrow valleys were in very good shape - no browsing by ungulates. Ornithologically inclined people have been very pleased with these changes. While concerns about wolves impacting livestock and pets are real, some hunters like to ignore or dismiss the degree of ecological impact of deer. I think this is because they want more deer for themselves. Deer repress native vegetation which directly encourages invasives they do not eat. These invasives have little or no wildlife value, and no timber value. Too many deer are a bad thing. That said, I do not think wolves would work in NYS. Deer numbers are highest in areas where wolves would be least welcomed or tolerated. The same with cougar. So, how do we get deer numbers in overpopulated areas to a place where the native vegetation can recover? Are any of you surf fisherman? Have any of you fished Cape Cod recently? In the last decade the number of grey seals has exploded to about 16,000. Why? Historically they were harvested for oil like whales. Then they were persecuted because they ate fish. However, in the early 70s they became protected by federal law. During a recovery that took decades, their major predator - great white shark - was being overfished. If "overfished" isn't too kind a word. The sealsrecovered very well, and they are smart. They watch you and steal the fish off your line. Some great whites have started congregating around the cape in summer. One grabbed a guy on a beach we fish last summer. I do not see these comments as a digression. The position of the sharks in their ecosystem is similar to wolves. Whey they are missing - or in such short supply that they do not fill their role - things can and do get out of control. I told some surfers on the cape last year that we needed more great whites to make the fishing better. That got their attention.

Bernie might be good for P-R funding also.

Didn't look at the quiz but just like Obama, Clinton would be a boon for P-R funds.

Just a quick comment since I am traveling. Spent one day in Yellowstone this week - the first time since 94. In 94 I saw many coyotes every day. I saw none this time.

I don't see dogs running wild. I see dogs raiding our eagle bait sites - fat dogs, dogs with collars. They are a nuisance. Actually, my big issue with coyotes is the same. We used 145 road killed deer (a legally licensed use) last season. Keeping the other scavengers fed so we can keep sites baited and continue our eagle research is sometimes a challenge. If the question is should we make a distinction between feral domestic dogs and wild hybrid canines, I say yes. Yes because the animals decended from coyotes and wolves are a truly natural - not man made - phenomena. The feral dogs are not. I think that the laws currently in place in NYS - coyotes treated as a game animal, domestic dogs restricted from running free in winter - are correct.

I just found a 2010 letter from just retired Chief DEC Wildlife Biologist Gordon B in my computer. Quotes of interest regarding NYS as a whole: "the New York State Conservation Council, Inc. has opposed various resolutions calling for a year-round season based on their status as a game species." "we view the Eastern coyote as a valuable component of New York’s faunal community and we seek to manage them for multiple values" "A central principle of game species management is that hunting or trapping opportunity should exclude the period of time when young are reared." As I said earlier, you will be hard pressed to find any professional wildlife biologist who retains the 19th century attitudes that are so prevalent here.

NYantler is absolutely right, most coyote problems are imagined. Most are not real. Look at where the complaints come from and compare that to how many DMPs DEC issues and how many antlerless deer are taken. Do that math. It makes a lot of coyote haters look like they didn't get through elementary school. You want more deer, lobbying DEC is a better use of time. If you just want to kill things, do your local farmer a favor and go after woodchucks. I am not saying there are not problems with livestock. Or, that there aren't areas where coyotes have a significant impact on deer. Those areas are marginal deer habitat anyway - due to excessive snow or closed canopy mature forests. What was moose habitat became deer habitat during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is now moose habitat once again.