New Jersey if big on trapping - easy to get permit and lots of wildlife to trap. I lived in Lincroft near Red Bank and the trapping and hunting are excellent.

Predation is only a limiting factor when you don't have sufficient escape cover and habitat for the prey species. That has been proven over and over and over again.

The number of predators is controlled and limited by the populations of the prey species since no species population can long exist beyond their food supply, which is one of the laws of nature thatcan never be broken.

Back when we have good pheasant populations we didn’t have sprays to kill all the weeds in the corn fields and they grew waist high in weeds, the hay fields didn’t get mowed until after the pheasants had already nested for the year, there were still old stump and stone fence lines andhedge rows as travel cover, the soil bank and stream bank buffers offered great habitat, and there was a lot more grain lost or just left behindat harvest time.

I am sure there are still other limiting factors today, but I’d bet if we got back to having good habitat with later hay mowing instead of killing the nesting hens, with the early hay mowing we have today, we would soon see an increase in pheasant populations again.

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County

Something I'v always wondered: How exactly does the PGCtrack predator populations (Coyotes, Foxes, Hawks, etc)? What do those population trends show for say the last 25years?

I would think it would be from the fur buyers in Pa...They would have to turn in a report to the PGC...Atleast I hope the PGC is doing this...This is the only way I can think of along with reports of road kill predators.. But,after all this they would have to estimate the population by how many was trapped.... I do know I have seen about 9 or 10 bobcats this year in different areas....And my friend traps and he had to release about 20 he said last year along with alot of fischers he has caught also in the 2E and 2G areas... But that is a question I would like to know also about predator population.....

Coyote and fox populations along with other furbearers are tracked by the Wildlife Management Bureau through various research projects, the game take survey and the coyote complaint tracking system, all of which are administered and monitored by the Furbearer Biologist.

Each WCO fills out a summary each year of coyote complaints and that information gets tracked in trends for each year though I don’t have those results on hand.

The hawk and owl trends are monitored by Wildlife Management and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service through functions such as the Breeding Bird Atlas and various monitoring of raptor migrations, plus each WCO records all migratory birds, by species, handled each year.

I would say that over the past 25 years in my area I have watched coyote populations increase and then decrease again to where they appear to be stable at a healthy population now. Fox populations have declined to very low levels compared to what they were 25 or even ten years ago, which always tends to happen when healthy coyote populations are present. Bobcat populations have increased. Hawks and owls appear to have stayed stable with no noticeable long term increases or declines.

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County

Pennsylvania has well over 200,000 acres enrolled in the CRP/CREP program. If I remember correctly that's more than any other state. That should be plenty of good habitat for a reintroduction program. Also, the many, many miles of land along the Delaware River at the delaware Water Gap is highly suitable for Wild pheasant Reintroduction.
There's no reason why the Game commission isn't promoting and backing every effort to reintroduce Wild Pheasants to these areas.

If we can reintroduce elk to various areas where only a very limited number (40 to 50) hunters will ever have the opportunity to kill an elk our PGC should certainly be pushing a Wild Pheasant Reintroduction Program so that many, many thousands of hunters could pursue the birds. That in turn would probably boost the number of hunters , especially young hunters which would clearly help the commission with their financial shortfall.

As it is now the Agency is only marginally involved in the Reintroduction program.

What they want?? They want deer as they do out west???It's not goanna happen...I don't care what you do...It's not goanna happen here in the east...
You go ahead and bring cactuses in this state and grow them..If you can do this...I will give you the biggest nobel award there is.....

The only way this will happen if you educate them and stop this restocking of predators...As in bobcats and fischers... Cover your asses... You got bobcats tagged...You want a shoot off as in pull the trigger if you see one??? Who wants to tell a farmer when he can and not hay his fields??? This is politics then...

I done some digging; this provides some interesting reading, especially on Coyotes in table#8 on Page#12:

http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/lib/pgc/reports/2005_wildlife/61001-04.pdf

Coyote complaints rose from 221 in 1996 to 603 in 2004 (no data beyond 2004).

Crazy , along the Delaware is precisely one of the areas I've been to field trials and watched hawk after hawk come down and take birds.
If everyone would READ my post you will see I believe it's a combination of things not just one particular problem. I do believe however desease is well down on the list. Deseases that hit domestic poultry are sporadic at best over the years and dealt with quickly and in no half measure way when they do appear. IMHO that would have an overall minimum cause and effect on what made the population crash.