Here’s if we add in 231 and 331……while we’re at it lets go ahead and add 431 and the Chattahoochee River…….Now don’t take what I’m saying as “coyotes wont cross major highways”…….That’s not it…….What I’m saying is that the rivers and the highways are heavily dictating a pattern of dispersal movement across the landscape……That’s why the coyote boom is buffering outward in the pattern its taking instead of it being like a perfect circle or balloon expanding…..This is more like pressure being squeezed out and it following the path of least resistance…….
So if you take Macon, Bullock, Barbour, and Russell…..which are the main plantation counties…..and add up their size in square miles it comes to roughly 2800 square miles…….Dr. Gulsby said in one episode of Wild Turkey Science that a good estimate on coyote density in an area like this was probably about 4-5 coyotes per square mile…..In Texas it has been found to be as high as 9…..…….I think it likely varies a lot across our Alabama landscape
At 4 that gives us a total estimate of roughly 11,000 yotes in those counties……For easy math lets go with 10,000 yotes…….If half of those are female then that’s 5000 females……Google says coyotes average 4-7 pups per litter and can have 8-9+ in really good conditions with plenty of food……So that means that our plantation belt could be cranking out 20,000 pups to disperse on a normal year with an average litter of 4……If we have a rodent boom and that average climbs to 6……then we’ve pushed out an additional 10,000 yotes for 30,000 total…..basically a 50% increase in the “pressure” being squeezed outward…….Of course this is just a rough guess but it gives you a feel for the kind of numbers we may be dealing with.....its in the thousands
Something else that I bet you varies a lot across the Alabama landscape is the mortality rate and life expectancy for coyotes…..I bet mortality rates are lot higher around urban areas like Birmingham and Dothan than they are around rural areas like Hurtsboro……which means a lot more turnover and resident holes to be filled in Birmingham than in Hurtsboro…..…That’s why a lot of that excess production in the plantation belt is being squeezed outward along those travel routes to those other locations……that’s where the holes are consistently opening……
The first eagle I ever saw was on the Cahaba in the early 60s. There weren't many then, but now they are common. We were in the catfish business from 1971 until 1999. I never saw an eagle get a catfish from the lake, and I've never seen one get a turkey. They probably do get some, but I doubt it's a number significant enough to matter. Do you have any research that says otherwise?
The first eagle I ever saw was near about in downtown Clio. A pond flipped and that eagle was standing on the bank eating all those dead fish. I got my gmaw to take me back and we watched him for an hour or so. Heck I saw a hen with 10 poults crossing the road last week, they are dying like always but I’d rather start mid march. Dang snake dens everywhere I hunt
The first eagle I ever saw was on the Cahaba in the early 60s. There weren't many then, but now they are common. We were in the catfish business from 1971 until 1999. I never saw an eagle get a catfish from the lake, and I've never seen one get a turkey. They probably do get some, but I doubt it's a number significant enough to matter. Do you have any research that says otherwise?
This is just across the GA line east of Abbeville......If a bald eagle will kill a chicken then what's the difference in killing a half grown turkey poult??....
"Right around the time Harris contacted the National Audubon Society, in December 2015, the eagles had moved from attacking chickens only to taking down turkeys, too. A few weeks later they went after the newborn goats."
The first eagle I ever saw was on the Cahaba in the early 60s. There weren't many then, but now they are common. We were in the catfish business from 1971 until 1999. I never saw an eagle get a catfish from the lake, and I've never seen one get a turkey. They probably do get some, but I doubt it's a number significant enough to matter. Do you have any research that says otherwise?
This is just across the GA line east of Abbeville......If a bald eagle will kill a chicken then what's the difference in killing a half grown turkey poult??....
"Right around the time Harris contacted the National Audubon Society, in December 2015, the eagles had moved from attacking chickens only to taking down turkeys, too. A few weeks later they went after the newborn goats."
Top predators of the bird world will eat whatever they can grab. I hope they go extinct
Top predators of the bird world will eat whatever they can grab. I hope they go extinct
I figure they just added another layer onto the avian turkey mortality.....It probably used to be that once a poult got past a certain size threshold that it stopped being so heavily targeted by avian predators......Eagles have likely bumped that size threshold up by targeting young juveniles and some adults
I’ve been pondering over Russell county and why its running a good 10-15% ahead of all the other plantation counties that surround it……I think its simply the structural layout of the major highways and rivers dictating those coyote dispersal routes……The eastern half of the county is squeezed between 431 and the big river and may be doing better than the western part giving the county that overall bump……431 is a big wide gap compared to a small highway and has much higher rates of nighttime traffic that has the potential to influence transient flow……
I think GPS studies have shown that the landscape has voids of space here and there between all of the resident yote territories and that’s how these transients are flowing around…..I think the difference in some areas versus others is the difference in the amount of transient flow occurring through those void spaces……Again its that idea of pressure being squeezed out of the path of least resistance….A lot more pressure is flowing through some voids than others…..Also remember that these really rural plantation areas have a lot higher reproduction than mortality……while the cities likely have higher mortality than reproduction…..these things dictate flow from one areas to another
That gap in Russell Co between 431 and the river for example likely has its residents but probably has minimal transient flow in the voids…..Compare that to southeast Elmore county where that landscape funnel occurs on the Tallapoosa and you likely have a heavy flow of transients moving through voids there…..Different rates of “pressure” escaping from the highly reproductive area
Here’s this resident map again that I posted above……I’ve taken and filled in the rest of the area with what it might look like if we had the other resident territories and the transient corridors drawn in…..Now you can visualize the transient pressure and its potential impact…..Best case scenario is zero PSI in the grey area…..That would mean those void areas would for the most part be coyote free and the whole area would benefit from it
The differences in this ^^^^^ transient pressure from one area to another is likely why we see some the differences that we do in trapping effectiveness.
I read on one these studies about how resident coyotes almost never crossed the interstates and highways and often showed an avoidance for them……while transients were much more tolerable……I think that’s how voids get created in a long connective line down the interstate corridor……I have no idea if they use them but one very void area for those transients to travel would be those wooded areas between the interstate
We only need 16 more birds to go over 20,000........Somebody get out there and kill another one
I think we are well over 20,000. Game check just doesn’t show it.
We aren't too far away from the game departments using AI to cross check social media posts vs game check entries. Hopefully that will slow down the outlaws, especially the younger ones that find it impossible to not plaster their kills all over social media.
________________________________________ In a world of game takers, be a gamekeeper.
"Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?"
We only need 16 more birds to go over 20,000........Somebody get out there and kill another one
I think we are well over 20,000. Game check just doesn’t show it.
Well......we just went over 20,000 legally game checked birds.........Currently at 20,010.........It may be a while before we see another year like this one. I guess it just depends on if somebody turns loose another round of that super bird flu........
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/atZ2iwY.jpeg)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/DluCgUe.jpeg)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/0nH6Ot0.jpeg)
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/3gKpepb.jpeg)
