You do realize you are taking about quail plantation land that has, and still does, practice the most intensive predator control in the country across huge acreages right? Doubt they relied on trappers selling furs. Those variables haven't changed much on those places.
Hell they probably have to or there wouldn’t be ANY turkeys left at all there’s so many predators around here. You’re actually making my point for me…..Anyone around here that really wants substantial turkey and quail populations are gonna need to trap and do it nearly non-stop…..The coyote situation today isn’t anything like what it was in the 80’s and they’re THICK as fleas around those heavy grass prairie tracts…..The places that do trap catch crazy amounts…..One caretaker told me they trapped 84 yotes on a trapping run that year…..Add to that the impact baiting has had on coons and we’re dealing with high, high populations of predators……Its tilted heavily in their favor.
That impact goes for miles too….…There’s a noticeable difference in leaving a deer overnight and tracking it the next morning around there compared to other areas…..You leave one overnight around Union Springs to Hurtsboro, etc and he’s gonna likely be eat up the next morning.
You’re dang right in using the word “intense” in describing the trapping efforts……The thing is though, we’re talking about 100’s of thousands of acres with astronomical predator counts now and really only a few folks doing some periodic trapping. Taking out yotes around here on a two week trapping run likely doesn’t buy you a whole lot of time before other ones fill back in…..probably even less in years when we have rat busts....Same for coons or any of them.
We say we’re managing for maximum wildlife output but we’re really managing for maximum rat and predator output and the other wildlife is kinda of a secondary side show to it all that is heavily driven and dictated by the grass, rat, predator dynamic….Don’t fret too much though because again I’m not saying that folks need to stop burning…..If I could design the perfect set-up it would have annual fire being used in some form or fashion somewhere…….Some things could be tweaked though to moderate the big fluctuations that are occurring and the heavy overbalanced predator load that is being produced…..Regardless of how you slice it, the numbers show that obviously happening.
