Habitat, not predators, seen as key to wildlife populations
Predators take a lot of heat for pursuing prey species that sometimes also are pursued by sportsmen.
Their impact is more imagined than real, though.
That's the word from Pennsylvania Game Commission, anyway. At its recent meeting, the agency devoted a lot of time to debunking the idea predators are driving game populations radically downward.
At the request of the board, two of the agency's biologists, Matt Lovallo and Dan Brauning, gave predator presentations.
Lovallo, supervisor of the game mammals section, said concerns over predation aren't new. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are in the midst of studying fawn mortality, he said.
“I can't think of a time in my career when someone hasn't been doing a fawn survival study somewhere,” he said. “It's all symptomatic of the fact, I think, that wildlife agencies have always had a difficult time communicating the complexities of predator-prey dynamics to our hunters out there.”
He said coyote and fisher populations are increasing statewide, and black bear and bobcat numbers are stable. In most cases, though, that “expansion” is coming in geographic terms, meaning predators moving into new locations rather than population in established areas going up, he said.
Predators tend to be self-limiting in that only so many can coexist in a certain amount of space, Lovallo said.
What is more, he said it is important to note most are opportunists who eat a variety of things, rather than hammering any one prey species. An examination of the stomach contents of fishers is an example, he said.
“The question is not what are they eating, but what won't they eat,” Lovallo said.
The same is true of birds of prey, said Brauning, wildlife diversity chief for the commission.
Bald eagles, for example, are “very defensive” of their space, he said. That is one thing that naturally limits their numbers. The same is true of everything from ospreys and peregrine falcons to hawks and owls, he said.
“These are really different species, and yet the patterns and principles do apply to any of them,” Brauning said.
Commission president Brian Hoover of Delaware County said the agency is not looking to do any predator control. The presentations were made only because one organization, the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, asked the agency to address the issue.
Unified, in particular, expressed concerns that bald eagles are eating stocked trout, and fishers are preying on several game species, Hoover said.
The commission doesn't believe that to be true in either case, according to a formal lengthy response that said, in part, predator control “does not work.”
The real key to boosting wildlife populations for all species, the board said, lies in giving them somewhere to live.
“To truly serve sportsmen, we must focus on proven means to restore small game hunting. And we do this by improving the habitat,” the letter said.
Bob Frye is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at bfrye@tribweb.com or via Twitter @bobfryeoutdoors.
Article by Bob Frye,
Everybody Adventures,
http://www.everybodyadventures.com
Copyright © 535media, LLC
