TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN
Hunters and other predators compete for game
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Authorities believe there are more black bears in Penn’s Woods today than at any time since the original European colonization. Long gone are cougars and wolves, their place at the top of the food chain quickly filled by other species.
But there is growing concern among some Pennsylvania hunters that a new hierarchy of predators, some protected by federal or state laws, is taking a bite out of game species populations.
Regulated hunting brought bear estimates from about 3,000 in 1980 to some 20,000 today — a clear conservation achievement — yet many deer hunters worry about the bears impact on whitetail fawn mortality. Federal protections that famously rescued migratory raptors from the edge of extinction give the predators unchecked access to small game. It’s fair to call the coyote’s unprecedented spike in population an invasion, and even the reintroduction of the fisher has brought yet another predator into the state.
“Currently all predators in Pennsylvania are either at record numbers or rapidly climbing to that position,” said lifelong hunter Randy Santucci of Robinson, in a letter to the PostGazette. “The fisher situation is the latest slap in the face of small game hunters.”
Board chairman and southwest regional director of Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, Santucci has long questioned the wisdom of increasing predator populations.
The reintroduction of the weasel-like fisher, a mammal once extinct in Pennsylvania, began in 1994. Santucci’s point is that a lot of hunters feel times are tough enough without increasing the competition.
“Hunters are the only predator in steady decline,” he said.
While Pennsylvania general hunting license sales dropped from 964,000 in 2005 to 935,000 in 2015, the estimated population of many predators, earthbound and avian, has soared.
On the low end of that scale, fisher incidental trapping reports rose from one fisher in 2005 to more than 1,000 in 2016. In 1980 three bald eagle nesting sites were known in all of Pennsylvania. In 2016 about 300 were documented, including four in Allegheny County.
Black bears now live in 60 of the state’s 67 counties, including Allegheny, and the statewide saturation of the Eastern coyote is virtually complete. Two years ago Game Commission furbearer biologist Tom Hardisky said the coyote’s density and range were “almost maxed out,” adding, “They're everywhere. We're at the point where there's nothing we can do to change the number of coyotes out there."
The impact Pennsylvania’s predators have on hunting has been the subject of much speculation and some valid research. According to most sources, habitat has a greater impact on small game than predation, but hunters in general are more concerned about competition for turkey and deer.
Predators take some mature Eastern wild turkeys, but eggs and poults are far more vulnerable. Nevertheless, the National Wild Turkey Federation lobbies for habitat management over predator control.
Black bears were long thought to have a minimal impact on deer, but an often-cited study of fawn mortality found that bears take as many as coyotes. The Penn State-Game Commission collaboration was explosive in its time. But much has changed since 2001-02, including increased habitat loss, state-managed reduction of the deer population and tremendous growth in bear and coyote numbers.
“Hunters definitely have a point,” said Pennsylvania coyote hunting guide and outdoors writer Michael Huff, author of “Understanding Coyotes” (CreateSpace, 2015). “[But] it’s too simplistic to look at it and say coyotes are the problem.”
Huff holds a clinic on coyotes at 4 p.m. today at the Allegheny Sport, Outdoors and Travel Show at Monroeville Convention Center.
“Coyotes don’t do much to adult deer, but they have a significant impact on fawns,” he said. “The thing that research shows and people are missing is when you have more diverse habitat, the predation from coyotes on deer goes down.”
A 16-year-old multi-site Game Commission study of fawn mortality suggests the deer’s chance of survival depends on where it lives.
“Fawn survival to 34 weeks of age was 38 percent in the forested study site and 53 percent in the agricultural area,” said deer management section supervisor Chris Rosenberry, in written correspondence. “Of the fawns that died, coyotes were responsible for 22 percent of mortalities in the forested study site and 11 percent of the mortalities in the agricultural area.”
Habitat management isn’t enough to get coyotes off the fawns’ back, said Huff. Coyote density has to go down.
“What makes a difference is not killing coyotes, but when you kill them,” he said. “Kill it in October [at the start of the trapping season] and another transient coyote will take its place. The only way to stop that equation is to disrupt them from having pups by taking out the breeding male or breeding female in January and February, shortly before they’re going to mate.”
Also, a change in the trapping season schedule could improve furbearer harvest reports, Huff said.
“Not enough people want to go out [trapping] when it’s cold,” he said. “A cable-restraint season in September would make it more appealing. It would get more people interested in the sport and take out more coyotes.” THIS WEEK: Should state and federal authorities suspend the reintroduction and enhanced protection of predators that seek the same species as hunters? • Yes • No • LAST WEEK: To enable more young bucks to mature, regulations should require hunters to harvest antlered deer only when the inside spread is at least 15 inches (replacing the “three up” rule — three points including the brow tine on one side).
“They’re everywhere. We’re at the point where there’s nothing we can do to change the number of coyotes out there.”