Look, in reality trying throw out numbers like this to predict just how much impact such an incentive would have is pie in the sky bullchit at the best you can do. You can try and estimate it but you’re not truly gonna know until you implement it and even then it’ll be tough to isolate one variable and quantify its impact. At the end of the day though I think it would be highly likely that such an incentive would have positive impacts if there was enough participation and very, very unlikely for it to have any negative ones. Something it would do for sure is take away two less things people have to bitch about moving forward……starting the season earlier and trapping more predators. Anyone who complains about the season dates would have a way to solve that. We can talk about burning and creating habitat but there will still be hundreds of thousands of acres of land that will never see fire, such as timber company land, that could benefit from trapping.

Here's the numbers for coon trapping in the past to give some perspective on taking out 100K coons.........I dont recall why I circled those few years

Here's turkey harvest numbers if you want to try and draw any correlation between the two. I think that's why I was circling the increase in coon trapping numbers......We also saw a jump in turkey harvest numbers at the same time period......You can also see that during the early 90's when trapping numbers fell off so did turkey harvest numbers.......

The circle on this chart is decoys being legalized.

This mythical place does not exist in the south. Y’all can keep saying it over and over - but it’s not a real thing. Look around when you are driving, get a grasp of how big 40 acres actually is, and reconfigure your mindset on “thousand acre desert”. This is false propaganda.

Yea, thats not the way statistics work And that is also the problem with something as complex as nest predation and predator removal. Again I am a BIG proponant of nest predator control..... on managed land..... intensive......NOT subsidized by taxpayers.
One study that is as good as you can get is this one
https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/thornton_ryan_p_200308_ms.pdf
INTENSIVE predator removal looking at quail nesting success. On one treatment site they removed a predator per 10 acres and saw nest success increase from 35% to 53%, pretty good but one predator per 10 acres removed! Removing 100,000 coons would roughly equate to one coon removed per 230 acres... drop in the ocean.
The other treatment site removed a predator per 13 acres the first year and one predator per 7 acres the second year and saw nest success go from 45% to 50%. Very little change for a HUGE effort.
https://www.talltimbers.org/images/pubs/QuailCallsp05.pdf#:~:text=From%202001%20and%202003%2C%20Wildlife%20Services%20personnel%20removed,average%2036%25%20to%20a%203-year%20average%20of%2058%25.
Most of these places are removing at least a predator per 20 acres or less, usually with a trap per 20 acres or more for months at a time and typically 70% of the catch is coons and possums. This is also with intensive managed habitat for birds, a high density of birds and there is measurable results.
All this intensive predator removal and they STILL have pretty high predation rates!

Of those 1,000 hens on maybe 25,000 acres - a good density, lets say 60% nested, thats 600 nests. Increase nest success from 25% to 27% by predator removal. That would be 150 hatched nests without predator removal, 162 hatched with predator removal. 12 more hatched nests would be an additional 120 poults. Both groups would experience over 80% mortality so the additional 120 are now 24 additional poults that make it to flight stage. That would equate to roughly 12 jakes and 12 jennys. That would equate to roughly 6 additional gobblers on 25,000 acres, or roughly an additional gobbler per 4,200 acres. An increase to be sure but not sure one anyone would notice. And thats if there were no compensatory mortality - a poor assumption. Again one of the reasons I would be against it - emptying the ocean with a bucket. It gets diluted fast.

Edit that, 1,000 hens per 25,000 would be exceptional. Realistically, thats a good turkey population. 1,000 hens per 50,000 ac would be more like it so half all my numbers. Ending up with an additional gobbler per 8,400 acres

That's not how statistics work......remember??? I think we can all agree that those numbers being thrown around are mostly just BS and in no way truly relevant. Just like the number your attaching onto the 100,000 coons as being 1 for every 230 acres......That's not at all accurate for how coons would actually be taken out

Y’all want to try and make the case that we shouldn’t do it because its wont solve every issue across every county……as if there is one solution that will. You’re wanting to strictly go with creating habitat as being the one size fits all remedy even though there will likely be far less places where that will have an impact than the trapping incentive……..places like Jackson Co for example……Fire will likely never have a major impact across that county but trapping could.

The fact is that it WILL make a difference in some spots and some it wont……It will be just one measure taken to help improve things in areas where other options are not feasible. There are also more things to consider than just data and studies…….Being that it WILL have at least some positive biological impact, I think its also then fair to look at what impacts it will have on hunter satisfaction…….and a lot of hunters have stated that they want to start the season earlier again and they want more trapping to occur. Both of which this addresses…...This idea that habitat is going to fix everything is only catering to the high rollers and snubbing its nose as the "little guys" who lease hunting club land.

I’ll throw this out there one more time too since it seems to get hazed over…….Its simply using “data” to cherry pick what you like and what you don’t when you scrutinize “the numbers” of an trapping incentive to this degree while corn baiting and decoys are legalized without numbers even being questioned. Why does one have to produce numbers showing it to be the end all cure all solution while the others don’t have to show anything concerning negative impacts??.....Just using common sense will tell you that the potential chances for negative impacts of those last two are far greater than any trapping incentive. This is just agenda driven decision making.

Hell, the season and limit changes had no data with it either. For the record, I was opposed to those, baiting and decoys, not just because they had no data to back it up. Didn't figure the baiting and decoys had ANY upside and potential downside for turkeys and the limit changes because it wouldn't make a difference.
Ill throw this out there again as well. Lets say I am an exclusive coon hunter and thats all I care about. Public land or private, why would I want my license dollars to go towards a bounty on the critter I choose to hunt. Same for the bird watchers, animal lovers, hikers who use our public lands - you think there would be ANY public support for it?

The amount of $$$ going toward funding this is virtually nothing……Since this is hypothetical anyways lets just go ahead as say that the cost to receive in coon tails is going to be covered by a private grant.

As far as the other users of the resource……..The state would simply be taking measures to help moderate coon populations through trapping and strike a better balance between their numbers and other species like turkeys,quail, and song birds since the coon hunters arent accomplishing that on their own. The incentive is in no way trying to eradicate the species but rather just better control population numbers that have likely been over inflated and pushed beyond carrying capacity due to legalized baiting. This is no different than what we do with controlling deer populations.

Sounds like a government employee



Where do I go to turn in my deer tails?

I think you’re being a little stubborn now Gobbler and showing very little flexibility to see this any other way but your own.

Serious question CNC, you ever been in sales?

Ahhhh My MO

(and I usually provide references for the numbers I use)

Kinda I guess……I worked at a pool store from age 17-20 and part of my job was selling swimming pools……

Why?.......Do you feel like I’m over selling the incentive idea and don’t know when to stop because I’ve won the argument or made the sale???

No but you have a lot of attributes that make a good salesman. You research and know your product. You come up with outside of the box solutions to problems. And you (seem) to take it personal when a customer doesn’t take your solution as his own. And when he doesn’t take it as his own, you present the same solution you in a different way to help him understand why it is the best solution for him.
Sometimes you don’t know when to stop, but that’s a good salesman attribute as well, sometimes.

I'd venture to guess that CNC had the highest percentage of original threads to go 10+ pages. When he latches on to something there ain't no letting go for a while. We need 257 back to moderate some of his semantics