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Curmudgeon

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Everything posted by Curmudgeon

  1. There will be no 365 day season. DEC has been funding research on coyotes - some of which is to determine when they whelp because some have been known to do so before the season ends. This may result in a shortened season. Coyotes - like all wildlife - belong to the people of the state. There would be outrage. Where is the science that says small game takes a "huge hit"? I know a DEC guy who is releasing what he calls "chickens" right now. They are probably taking such a hit. Then again, they are not wild birds. The 70% goal is doomed to fail. Since this level of persecution cannot be achieved or sustained beyond a small area, it's a waste of energy that will result in no change. The only benefit will be your emotional satisfaction. Your small game populations will not improve. I see groups of turkeys most days. I have too many squirrels and am dealing with them myself. The rabbit population is very high right now. Grouse are low but this one species cannot be laid at the feet of coyotes. This conversation just affirms that this is not about game management. It is an emotional reaction to competition. Wolves, now there's an idea for controlling coyotes.
  2. I used nuisance permits only once when things were really bad. Usually the DMAPS are adequate. Farmers may be reluctant to let hunters know they are killing does. I have encountered some hostility. I was told I was "killing the brood stock". However, I am not in the business of breeding deer.
  3. We are going off topic but I need to respond. Thanks Papist for the science. It saves me the time. What Belo said is above. He never met a hunter who "did not allow yote hunters access after deer season". This clearly suggests he is only talking to people with a similar mentality, or choosing to ignore the others. The two neighbors I cited are not close friends, just people I talk to and ended up commiserating with. Why do I have no trouble finding people who have these problems? One of the two hunts deer. The other encourages deer hunting on his property. At a meeting in Stamford - this may have been 5 or more years ago - a DEC wildlife guy told me the greatest threat to coyote hunting with hounds was the number of complaints they get about hounds running on land where they are not welcome. Maybe some are antis, but not all. ~9 people hunt my land each season, none has ever shot a coyote. This isn't due to any rule I put in place. Most are family who share a common love and respect for predators. My nephew came back from a hunt last season with a bunch of photos of one. A day in the woods where I get to watch a fox hunt, or see a fisher, is a better day than one when I kill a buck. I've killed a lot of deer. I have not seen a lot of fishers. I spent about a half hour once squeeking at a weasel while it poked its head in and out of a pile of brush. My daughter the professor calls weasels "charismatic mini-fauna". That's my girl. Culver Creek somehow took my love of predators and questioned if it fit with some kind of statewide political agenda. That's a stretch. However, I do love predators. Predators' ability to do what they do well is at times unbelievable. I've had falconers hunt here. The speed of the birds when after prey is amazing. I have a photo of 6 eagles feeding at once on road kill on my property. A deer killed with a lead bullet that fragmented into hundreds of pieces could have poisoned every one of those birds. The neighbor who encountered the belligerent coyote hunter owns 1200 acres and also does not allow lead ammo used on his land. He only allows bow hunting and insists that every hunter fill a DMAP tag before taking a buck. How weird is that? I've made the point in other posts that there are too many deer in the state. Well over half the deer killed legally are anterless. This is by design! Why should Culver Creek be trying to kill enough coyotes to increase deer numbers? Except for the big woods - and maybe the areas with deep lake-effect snow - the result will be too many deer for the health of the forests, and more DMPs to lower the population. Coyotes are no threat to healthy adult deer in most of the state. They are no threat to healthy adult bucks except under extreme conditions. What is the problem? Unless an animal is a direct threat to my household economics, I do not kill anything I do not eat. There is no shortage of venison. You might think me out of the mainstream, however, when I was on the deer management task force for 4F a couple of years back, we had no trouble reaching consensus. I am not a reactionary, just someone who hopes to prompt others will ask themselves why.
  4. "Bye" because I had to go back to work. You haven't gotten rid of me. No lead on the property. No coyote shooting. Don't like Cuomo or the safe act. Don't like Astorino because he is pro-fracking. Who do I vote for? Back to Belo - He suggests that posted signs only apply to deer hunters, not to coyote hunters. Is there anyone out there who feels that way?
  5. I spoke quickly during a lunch break on a nice day - no ecological purpose. Certainly, it serves the purposes of the people who hunt them. My land management decisions are based first on the health of my forest. Killing coyotes does not change deer populations. It only disrupts the coyote social order causing more to reproduce. Bye.........
  6. Like Will Rogers who never met a man he didn't like, you haven't met me or some of my neighbors. It's the same as those people who asked how someone won an election when no one they know voted for him. You are only talking to people who think like you. I allow deer hunting (trying to fill as many DMAP and DMP tags as possible), small game hunting, etc. I do not allow coyote hunting. It serves no purpose. I like coyotes. And, the local hunters are badly behaved. As an aside, I also had one steal from me while trespassing. Without going into detail, we know it was a coyote hunter. The local ECO went around talking to them as a warning.
  7. They are here. I get them on my game cameras every year. Here's a photo. I wish had had one of these trained "killing machines" in my yard right now. The grafted hickory nuts are almost mature. I had to remove 7 red squirrels in the past week to protect my nuts. Where is a killing machine when you need one. A suggestion: put your game camera on your butchering scraps after deer are processed.
  8. Pierce loads a lot of Barnes bullets for Ted Nugent.
  9. Just to clarify, the shooter was 30 yards from the house. The coyote was further. It is interesting that the hunter wasn't charged with trespassing even though he shot over posted land at an animal on posted land. He was charged with shooting from a road and within 500 feet of a house.
  10. Yes, Hillbilly - The hounds run through here every winter. I've walked up to the trucks that show up following the dog's tracking devices and told them they can't shoot onto my property. I really am a Curmudgeon. My neighbor - on a dirt road a mile or so away - had one pull up next to his house and shoot at a coyote from the road 30 yards from the front door onto his posted land. That one got ticketed and paid a good fine. Another neighbor found one releasing the hounds onto his posted land on an early morning. There were tracks that crossed the road after a light snow. He confronted the offender who became belligerent. I've heard in VA that your dogs trespassing is the same as the hunter trespassing. The neighbor who had the shooter next to his house talked to an ECO. He says you are only allowed to demand that the dogs be removed.
  11. Can we teach the coyote hunters hounds to read posted signs?
  12. WV and PA reintroduced fishers to help control a growing population of porcupines. A study of fisher diet in Albany County found they eat mostly grey squirrels there. Since fishers have become more common in Otsego County, porkie numbers seem way down. Fewer in the woods, and fewer dead in the road. If they are such "bad news", my squirrels, rabbits and turkeys weren't told. Here's a link to an article on fishers in PA - http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=631109&mode=2
  13. Interesting Hillbilly, you are in Sangerfield. I'm in northern Otsego County not far away. The only time we had a problem with coyotes eating our deer was when it got dark and we had to wait until morning to find it. This was many years ago. Since we switched to copper ammo, hardly a deer gets out of sight before dropping. If coyotes were killing my dogs, I would hate them too. My springer once came face to face with one and ran behind my legs. The coyote walked towards us but broke off at about 30 yards and left. Hating them and killing them doesn't change their population, or their impact on the deer population in any significant way.
  14. Consider this: all research suggests that persecution of coyotes results in no long term change in the population. Coyotes respond by reproducing faster. Any reduction is short-lived and local. Attempts have been made to wipe out coyotes for over a century. It works well with wolves but coyotes will not go away. Here's a mental exercise for those of you who think coyotes are problem: 43% of the 243,567 deer taken legally in NYS last year were adult bucks. 57% were antlerless deer. If all coyote hunting, and all hunting of anterless deer was stopped immediately, what do you think would happen to the deer population? How does hunting coyotes help your deer hunting. I believe that much of the emotional response to coyotes is just a selfish reaction to competition. The facts don't matter.
  15. Agreed, we need more hunters. We don't need a ban.
  16. I saw the news release. I oppose a ban but read this carefully. A shortage of lead free bullets was predicted for this year because of the CA ban. That is not news. I'm pleased that guns.com had the good sense to edit out the worst claims. Why haven't copper bullet prices increased in NYS recently?
  17. Thanks Predate. If people are going to behave as criminals, someone needs to call them on it. Any ECOs reading this? I have many coyotes around. The wife and I took a walk last week. We counted 14 fawns on adjacent properties while we strolled the grounds. Not 14 deer, 14 fawns! I like coyotes too. However they are failing to control the deer population. I need to make sure all the DMAP tags get filled again.The coyote "problem" is overblown hype. There are too many deer in all but the big woods of the state. I also have a flock of sheep. I never let them lamb outside so don't have a problem with coyotes. In cold weather, I have gone out in the morning after a light snow. Just like with deer, you can see the beds where the sheep had slept in the pastures. One morning I found coyote tracks 50 yards from the sheep beds in the fresh snow. The sheep didn't even get up. The coyote didn't stop. These predators are filling a niche we opened for them. Give them a break. They eat a lot of woodchucks.
  18. I've used a lot of Moultrie's purchased in lots at discount for research. Some of them are in the field for 4 months a year. The blowing weeds is a common problem. If that is ruled out, it's probably defective. We have had a lot of failures and always keep extra cameras on hand. The newer models seem to be better. I had a handful of new D-444s in the field last year with no failures. Moultrie's tech people may put you through a drill - which almost never helps - but they are pretty good at customer service. If you go through a lot of batteries, check out http://www.all-battery.com/
  19. In a meeting with DEC in June, I requested they collect bone samples from coyote and crow hunters and measure the lifetime exposure of lead in those animals. I have not heard back yet from them. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a bone-lead study has been done with Black Vultures and showed chronic exposure. This is awaiting publication. Another interesting study would be to compare the lifetime lead levels in road-killed scavengers compared to those away from roads. When you consider how many are actually in the road, crows rarely get hit by car. Observational data suggests that many more crows get killed on roads during West Nile Virus outbreaks. Impaired animals are more likely to make mistakes. Then again, any animals along the road are at higher risk so this line of thought might not apply to possums and skunks.
  20. Good question. I have read a lot of literature. I don't know of any other ligit source. I would be willing to consider anything that is not clearly propaganda. Before the waterfowl lead shot ban, Bald Eagles - being sea eagles that hang out around water - were being poisoned by bird shot they picked up in injured ducks and geese. The bird shot - being large compared to bullet fragments - was easy to find. This happens rarely now. It is possible that some of this is secondary poisoning. Maybe if an eagle fed on a sick skeet range goose - without actually consuming the pellets in the geese - they could conceivably be poisoned. This happens with rat poison regularly. Scavengers find poisoned rats easy to catch. Actually, the cat lady next door put out rat poison and ended up poisoning some of her unvaccinated, mostly feral cats.
  21. Doc - First, the chart is not a study. It is data. Second, you - and others - expect them to find bullet fragments because you think it takes something the size you can see to poison the birds. Please read my previous post about the size of the fragments. Here is another attempt to put it in perspective: One grain - as in one of 130 gr or 160 gr bullet - equals 64,800 micrograms. It only takes 10 micrograms per 1/10 of a liter (3.4 oz) of blood to poison an eagle. Scavengers are VERY likely to consume these tiny fragments. They are much less likely to consume the very few large pieces of lead in a carcass that would be seen. Loons on the other hand - for those of you who still want lead spit shot - are picking up pieces they use as grit. This explains why the source for loons is easier to determine. I know it can be difficult to understand that pieces of lead too small to see can and do poison these birds. However, unlike the albatross in the article I provided the link for yesterday, eagles are not picking up paint chips around old houses. They are not using old plumbing. They are only eating meat. They are getting the lead from meat. Consider my friend who worked in the test range at Remington. He got pulled from that department whenever his blood lead went up - which was regularly. This was from dust in the air. Dust too small to see. Using your logic, maybe he got the lead somewhere else.
  22. DEC pathology could not determine the source of some of the lead. This is not a surprise because it takes nothing even close to a full bullet. There are very few cases like the PA bird with the air rifle pellet in its gut. I could try to create a dropbox for anyone who wants the memo and spreadsheet. Just ask. A 130 grain bullet equals about 8 1/2 million µg. A dL equals about 3.4 ounces. 10 µg/dL in the blood is often considered a level at which symptoms appear but no level is safe. Say that 130 grain bullet sheds 30% of its mass into the carcass and cavity before passing through (20-30% is normal). That leaves 2 1/2 million µg still in the carcass. If a 10 pound eagle has a quart of blood (a wild guess on my part), It has about 9 dL of blood - or almost a liter. That means it would need to absorb 90 of the 2 1/2 million µg that remain in the animal into its blood to reach the 10 µg/dL level. If there are 100 equal fragments, each one contains 25,000 µg. Say that eagle eats one fragment, it only needs 90 µg out of 25,000 to enter its blood stream to reach the 10 µg/dL. Those tiny fragments could easily be dissolved by stomach acid. These are incredibly small amounts. I am attaching a photo from this paper showing fragmentation http://www.huntingwithnonlead.org/PDFs_Main/BulletFragmentationInWTDeerAndImplicationsForScavengers.pdf
  23. No, because in most cases we are talking about minute fragments.
  24. Sorry for the lack of context.I didn't think it made sense to include the whole memo. Here's a quote about the geese: "A majority of these cases are Canada geese poisoned after ingesting large numbers of small lead birdshot at trap and skeet ranges in Suffolk and Rensselaer Counties. Geese also ingest spent lead birdshot while feeding in areas heavily contaminated prior to the ban on lead shot for waterfowl hunting." I tried to attach the spread sheet but it won't let me. I'm hoping this copy and paste works. BTW - Interesting that Doc thinks this somehow doesn't make a case for lead-free bullets. It is the tip of the iceberg. Consider the numbers of Red-tailed Hawks compared to both species of eagles in New York during this period. Then compare how many hawks vs. eagle poisonings occurred. CANADA GOOSE 6 4/11/1973 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/29/1975 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/18/1975 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/19/1977 CANADA GOOSE 1 6/6/1977 CANADA GOOSE 2 10/12/1980 CANADA GOOSE 1 2/8/1984 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/5/1984 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/31/1984 CANADA GOOSE 2 4/23/1984 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/2/1985 CANADA GOOSE 11 12/3/1985 CANADA GOOSE 4 12/9/1985 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/17/1986 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/3/1986 CANADA GOOSE 15 10/31/1988 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/31/1988 CANADA GOOSE 4 3/24/1988 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/8/1989 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/27/1989 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/21/1989 CANADA GOOSE 2 4/30/1991 CANADA GOOSE 1 2/5/1992 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/19/1992 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/4/1992 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/10/1992 CANADA GOOSE 3 12/15/1992 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/14/1992 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/29/1992 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/4/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/6/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/15/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/11/1993 CANADA GOOSE 6 2/5/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/20/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/24/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/1/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/4/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/6/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/6/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/10/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/19/1993 CANADA GOOSE 2 11/21/1993 CANADA GOOSE 4 11/11/1993 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/19/1994 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/24/1994 CANADA GOOSE 5 9/28/1994 CANADA GOOSE 6 9/27/1994 CANADA GOOSE 5 9/26/1994 CANADA GOOSE 7 9/27/1994 CANADA GOOSE 2 9/29/1994 CANADA GOOSE 3 9/29/1994 CANADA GOOSE 4 10/6/1994 CANADA GOOSE 42 12/10/1994 CANADA GOOSE 15 12/16/1994 CANADA GOOSE 20 12/20/1994 CANADA GOOSE 1 2/15/1995 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/6/1995 CANADA GOOSE 1 3/16/1995 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/29/1995 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/4/1996 CANADA GOOSE 3 11/18/1996 CANADA GOOSE 1 5/7/1996 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/29/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/29/1997 CANADA GOOSE 3 12/4/1997 CANADA GOOSE 3 11/8/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/12/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/12/1997 CANADA GOOSE 2 11/19/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/12/1997 CANADA GOOSE 3 11/13/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/13/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/14/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/13/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/15/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/25/1997 CANADA GOOSE 3 11/26/1997 CANADA GOOSE 2 12/11/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/9/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/18/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/12/1997 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/20/1998 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/22/1999 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/25/1999 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/12/2001 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/9/2001 CANADA GOOSE 1 11/29/2001 CANADA GOOSE 9 11/30/2001 CANADA GOOSE 2 11/30/2001 CANADA GOOSE 1 12/14/2001 CANADA GOOSE 5 12/4/2001 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/19/2001 CANADA GOOSE 1 1/16/2002 CANADA GOOSE 3 3/7/2002 CANADA GOOSE 1 4/3/2002 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/15/2002 CANADA GOOSE 1 7/24/2002 CANADA GOOSE 8 1/24/2003 CANADA GOOSE 5 3/18/2003 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/15/2005 CANADA GOOSE 1 8/8/2006 CANADA GOOSE 20 3/7/2010 CANADA GOOSE 1 10/24/2001 CANADA GOOSE 3 10/24/2007 CANADA GOOSE 8 11/14/2008 CANADA GOOSE 31 2/9/2009
  25. This link was sent to me this morning by a DEC wildlife employee. If you don't have tunnel vision, it is worth reading. The point of the article is, you don't have to give a raptor a lethal dose to kill it. http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2014/aug/wingedwarnings10metalmadness On another front - the USFWS process to enact 30 year "take" permits for eagles, supposedly has provisions to mitigate excessive "take". Guess what one of the mitigation measures is? Lead abatement. What do you think that means? You will not find the answer at huntingfortruth. http://eaglescoping.org/topics#compensatory-mitigation I attached a chart from a March 2010 NYSDEC memo I obtained through the state's Freedom of information law. Keep in mind that these are only what ended up at the pathology lab, not at rehabilitators. It doesn't include the many birds that died and were never shipped to Delmar.
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