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Raccoon trapping
- Thread starter bueller
- Start date
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Still have a few cages out for coons and possums. Picked up a coon yesterday and a possum today. I am shocked at the number of possums I have caught in the last couple of months. With that many on my place I can see why there seemed to be no turkey poults last Spring. How does a nest stand a chance with that many possums. I am going to trap my neighbors for a couple of weeks once I get a chance to set some traps on it. Still have a couple of coyotes that I would like to kill on my place. Its nice to see my habitat work paying off! LOL The best habitat around attracts the prey and the predators.
It is really amazing that any of these ground nesting game birds ever hatch a chick. From the time a turkey lays its first egg to when the nest hatches, that first egg has laid on the ground almost forty days. Dont know how they ever hatch an egg
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
It truly is. I do believe quality habitat outranks predator trapping as a way to boost game bird populations, but I am not sure great habitat could even out shine these predator numbers. My traps have been set in areas that seem most favorable for nesting. The 3 cage traps have not changed location since they were put out after Christmas. I think I am up to 17 possums and 4-5 coons. Trail camera photos reveal yet another possum making the rounds last night. If I was actually targeting these critters 2 out of the 3 locations I probably would not have even set a trap at. I did pop in a couple of DPs yesterday down in a dry drainage just to see what I come up with. A spot that I would more likely associate with those types of furbearers.
If you can get them all, great - but Tall Timbers plantation with their predator index, showed that there is a specific density of predators - if it falls below - quail population will still increase - the predators dont all have to be gone. I would imagine the same is true for turkeys.
I did the best I could reasonably do with my habitat - and only had an occasional turkey show up. When I started spring trapping - not long after, I started having some resident turkeys. But I agree, if the habitat had not already been there, the trapping would not have helped by itself. Here, it takes both
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
As a professional trapper for close to 15 years, back in my younger days I know all too well that outside of a very few exceptions, such as an isolated colony of beavers, you aren't really going to have any real long term effect on the population when trapping smaller sized, random properties. Way too many critters on adjoining properties just looking for a chance to shift into better or less inhabited habitat when the opportunity arises. I have no delusions of getting them all, but hopefully I will see some benefits from thinnin them out on my place. Maybe become the hotbed of bird nesting in a 10 mile radius. 
