Now this is just a theory of mine on a particular area……I don’t know for sure if its gonna hold true or not but I got a hunch……The “plantation belt” down here is a very large area…. a lotta lotta of land……..especially if we go from Russell Co all the way across south Montgomery and westward……There’s also a LOTTTT of dormant season fire being run through these plantations with zero herbivory…..I say this as someone who has tromped through a lot of it…..

I think we’re probably producing too much grass on a large scale across this area. You’re talking about a huge area over producing grass…..which is likely carrying high rodent populations as a result……which is probably driving huge predator loads…..which probably impacts areas well outside of just that plantation zone…..Imagine the coon scenario we just got through talking about with them being grouped up on the feeders all winters and then dispersed on Feb 11……..Now apply that same concept to raptors and let the over grassed plantation belt be our feeder. Same concept on way bigger scale. This huge imbalance of grass could be propping up raptor populations that are impacting the landscape at county wide levels and farther……I know I’m in Auburn and its crazy at the amount I see here flying around town. I counted 5 in the sky one day that I could see from the back yard.

But lets just say we’re averaging 60% grass across many of these plantations and we should be at 30%.......Like the picture I posted there are some stands that are dang near 100% grass…..But just at 60% that’s twice as much grass as we should have……Does that equate to twice the rodents?.....I don’t know the answer for sure but I think it’d probably be a safe bet to assume it increases their abundance by a good bit…..that’s twice the cover and twice the food…….If we made a structural adjustment to the understory and got all of that grass in check……How would that effect the predator populations??.......You couple this overabundance of plantation belt grass with the fact that there’s cattle farming heavily intertwined in amongst it growing hay and such and its all a big recipe for predator paradise on BIG scale......and a lot of it is due to the "structural layout" being heavily in their favor.

Another way of looking at this is that the overabundance of predators, especially raptors, could really be narrowing down the poult survival to just the bestest of the bestest locations across a huge area…..Just think about how a bunch of raptors see the landscape from above...You would likely be getting very little production from anywhere else the higher the predator loads are driven up....

I understand the demand for lumber but I hate pine trees.

Lots of raptors around here I’ve seen more than I can recall at any time in my life. I think many factors have come about to increase populations. I see a lot of Red Shoulder hawks and Coopers and I think they’re pretty rough on quail and turkey poults

Most of the old timers that lived to kill them are gone. It was a like a competition or something between them.

I look at it this way…….if we could hypothetically take away all of the turkey predators…..then from the standpoint of cover, habitat wouldn’t matter much…..If there’s nothing to hide from then there’s no need to have to hide period……

Now, if we start adding in predators to this scenario…..the higher you drive their populations up, the more reproduction becomes limited to the best habitat…..The more cover habitat matters…..As you keep increasing predator density you lose more and more locations where turkeys are successfully reproducing….And at a certain point if you get the predator density just maxed out due to imbalances in the habitat structure…..then you’ve limited reproduction to just the very prime spots……I kinda think that’s what we’re doing…..Keep in mind that turkeys are not really what’s propping up their predators’ populations….Turkey predator populations are being driven by other variables.

Now keep in mind that if we layer on the coon and corn issue that’s very likely being inflated……then we have this excess pressure being applied to both nesting and brooding…….Only the best nesting is likely successful and only the best brooding……or you’re pushing it way toward that end of the spectrum anyways. Inflated predator numbers makes good habitat go from being important to being really, really, really important…… I’m sure there’s also a part of it that’s a little deeper than just good nesting and brooding……Having those in about the right ratio and in the right spatial relationship to each other is likely playing a role too…..Anything that causes increased movement and traveling is going to amplify mortality rates the higher the predator load gets. I would think that ideally you would want to have nesting and brooding virtually intertwined….not at stand levels but within the stand itself…… That’s where the need for some irregularity comes into play.

Here is kinda what I have pictured as getting closer to what you want……except with more color.......