Animal distribution changes I have seen

[ozark]

While I was growing up there were some deer in the north centeral part of the Ozark National forest only. Today they are plentiful in about every county and to thick in many places. I never heard or seen a Coyote, Armidillo, or Road runner while growing up. Today they are pretty much distributed over the state. The Bob White Quail was plentiful and nearly every farm had a covey or two. Today it is rare to see one or a covey. We had no wild turkey back in the forties and fifties but now they are pretty well extablished over the whole state. The spotted skunk (civit cat) was caigjt amd its fur sold while I grew up. Haven't seen or heard of one being seen in years. Beaver and river ottors ae plentiful now and we never seen even one or sign while I grew up. Honey bees had homes in hollow trees throughout the area while I was young but are seldom even seen now. There are fewer snakes around now. I think that is because the back roads are used by vehicles a lot now and any posinous snake seen is killed. Groundhogs have held their own but have never been common enough to make hunting them interesting. Squirrel are thick for a couple of years and thin for a couple. Because of farm ponds we probably have more fish than ever before. Chinquipins used to be abundant but the dutch elm desease killed them out. We have several bear and some elk now that are doing well after being reintroduced. Red fox are rarely seen but we have several greys. The sport of coon and foxhunting with dogs has about dwindled down to nothing around here. Wildcat whiskey is still available if you know the right people. Boys still date girls and girls still prefer boys to other girls as far as I can tell. So I guess we are still in pretty good shape. Ozark.

[Buckrub]

My Grandmother, who has been deceased for about 20 years......was born in 1900. Her husband, my Grandfather, was born in 1890. I always marveled at the specific time their lives spanned, and what all they got to witness. I doubt any other age still alive has seen so many changes. You're about the age of my mother, Ozark (she had me when she was about two........haha), and she and you have seen a lot too. But I've had a passle of stuff cross my path also.

I can remember my Grandfather telling me about how he would work all week to make a dollar, or maybe fifty cents, in cash. He would take that money and go to Thomas (?) Wholesale here in Conway (which I well remember shopping at as a teenager...but I think I have the name wrong), and buy as many LOOSE shotgun shells as he could afford. They were never more than a dime apiece but sometimes far less. No one but rich folks bought them by the box.

He would then take the old single shot 20 gauge that later I used to learn to hunt, and head afield behind his house. Whatever he could kill is what he, my Grandmother, and his six kids ate for Sunday dinner after church. The chickens were far too valuable to kill to eat.

He said that many times there was very little game. Most of those times he would kill a few blackbirds. And......you guessed it...with a wink he told me that they "tasted pretty much like chicken". He was serious, that is what they ate.

In 1938 there were supposedly 500 deer in the entire state of Arkansas. Hunting year round and meat-selling had decimated the herd. The fledgling Game and Fish Commission traded turkeys and some fish to Wisconsin for a passle of trapped 'blue deer'.....the BIG bodied deer that are still indigenous to Wisconsin. They brought them here and put them in large pens in South Arkansas. I've seen the remnants of two of these pens. That is what repopulated Arkansas' deer herd. That is why my father in law always believed it to be EVIL to kill a doe...because there were not enough deer for the habitat in the 50's and 60's. NOW we have more deer than the habitat allows, almost everywhere, and doe killing is essential for herd health.

That's just one species.

I hunted quail all my childhood. When my uncles would say "let's go hunting" I thought they meant quail. I didn't know, as a small boy, that folks actually hunted other things. I used to hunt all over the area where I-40 goes through Menifee west of here a few miles. We never had a day that I can remember with less than 15 coveys kicked up.

I remember while quail hunting we always stumbled across a snipe or a woodcock or two....and ate them too. I never see them anymore.

I don't remember wild turkeys. I think someone mailed them into the state during my 20's and 30's years while I wasn't looking. Now they are everywhere.

Squirrels have seemingly always been abundant. In town, out of town, everywhere. Black squirrels were always pretty rare, but it's been years since I've seen even one.

Mother says that lack of bees is what keeps her annual garden from doing well, that it's almost never pollinated.

I see way more hawks than I used to. Maybe there are more field mice. Or maybe I just started looking around and began to notice 'em. I'm not sure. Last week I swear I saw two falcons in the wild.

I've seen more weird songbirds in the woods while deer hunting than I ever have. One of them took me three months of Googling and Searching to find its picture. I finally did, and now I can't remember the name. Some complicated name like Red Breasted Something Thrush Something Else. And there was a yellow breasted one too, but I never saw that one.

I see a ton of bobcat that I never used to see before, and tracks everywhere. What are they eating? They used to be scarce, now we're overrun with them.

I can remember in 1978 to 1980, or thereabouts, that there were so many DUCKS (that's a Mallard, other species are just ducks) on the Arkansas River and Cadron Creek and about anywhere there was water, that you could scoop 'em out of the air with a fishing net. I used to love duck hunting. Now they are not here. Folks in Oklahoma say they see a few. Folks up north shoot them up before they ever get here, and start way too early. But they seem to pass over Arkansas, still supposedly "Duck Capital of Earth". My wife's family farm is in Almyra, pure-dee duck country.....and they have almost none. But snow geese show up by the billions. Probably trillions. Course, it USED to be cold in the winters.

Shine is pretty hard to get, but there's a few that still knows how to make it so smooth it makes you drunk before it hits your stomach. Then your ears catch on fire. I'm not sure which comes first, to be honest.

I haven't paid much attention to boys......or girls.....in a quite a while. That'll change next month when my 16 year old grandson comes to visit. I have noticed that a lot of young girls have real pretty Mama's.......and Grandmama's. Never used to notice that before.

I 'spect we're all in about as good a shape as we can get. I know I am.

[chuck41]

Yep. Down in northern Louisiana as a kid a deer was something you saw only at the zoo. Likewise wild turkeys. Now they are everywhere.

We also had lots of quail, rabbits and squirrel. Today the quail are hard to find, rabbits less widespread, but the fuzzy-tailed tree rats are everywhere! Armadillo showed up in North Louisiana in the very late 50' along with a few roadrunners. Foxes were plentiful, but coyotes were never seen back then. There are a few foxes around now and the coyotes announce their prescience nightly around deer camp. We had a few years about 10 years back you didn't hear them, but they are back again now.

Unlike Buckrub, I never quit noticing the pretty young girls, and their pretty mamas, but now I am noticing that some of them have pretty grandmas as well. Perhaps its these new glasses I got.

[wilmsmeyer]

In the Catskill Mtns in NYS where I grew up it was uncommon to see Turkeys and Coyotes 30 yrs ago. When canada geese migrated, their honking was bearly audible as they were 1000's of feet in the sky....never did I see one on the ground. Bear were here and there, although I never seen one growing up in the backwoods. Same with Bobcats. A guy we knew caught a few every year but I never saw one until I was 20 something.

Now, turkeys are thriving in the entire state...yotes are too...and geese have become the latest pests. Bear populations are generally up too but sightings are still uncommon unless there is a drought or you live in the Adirondack Mtns. Bobcats are rarely seen and sometimes caught...they make the paper in deer season when someone shoots one.

Deer and woodchucks thrived then and still do...no matter how hard I hunt them...and that's good. ;D

[northny]

Several transistions I have witness. As a young boy, I helped my grandfather and his retired friends build and then hang nesting boxes for wood ducks (this in the early sixties). I don't think he every killed a wood duck, and I did not see one for another decade, but they are now plentiful. I have build and hung nesting boxes with my sons as recent as four years ago, and we kill a few woodies each season.

In the mid sixties I took a trip with my father to vermont where at the time they were trapping wild turkeys for transplant to other states. New York was one of the beneficiaries, and turkeys are now plentiful enough to be road kill in the state.

In the late 50's, early 60's I remember seeing bald eagles flying above my grandparents place (aptly located on eagle valley road) just outside west point. It was 40 years before I saw another one in NY, but they are coming back. I see a couple each year in St Lawrence county.

But the same law that protected eagles when DDT had the population low, now has the population of hawks out of control in my opinion. Drive the highway and every quarter mile one is sitting on a tree or post. I attribute the delcine of much of the small game to increase in hawks, and quit rabbit hunting when I would see many more hawks them rabbits in an outing.

Beaver have become a pest again . A few years ago parts of southern canada put a bounty on them as they were costing to much when flooding drianage ditches and roads. They were coming on lawn of my lake camp and other houses on the lake and taking trees. A trapper took 10 beaver in 10 nights with one trap at my dock. He took almost 100 beaver from that small lake that winter. They were skin and bones and starving to death. I really wish the ladies would go back to wearing beaver, racoon, and coyote furs, it would help with the balance. Porcupines are another nusiance that is florishing that I could do without. We now need to do predator control on coyotes to take them from over running the place and reducing the deer heard. Even with that the evening before deer season my son and I still saw a group of five hunting across our property. Another shoot on site in season.

Bobcats have become common, I see a couple a year, in single or group of three. We let them be as fun to watch for a few years until our turkey flocks starting disappearing, and was told the bobcats will climb up and kill roosting turkeys at a rate of one per cat per night. In season they are now shoot on sight.

Hummingbirds were a rare treat when I was young, they now abound around the feeder.

To close on a positive note, as a young boy I would go crab fishing with traps on the hudson river. The crabs would be up as far as Newburgh bay (60 miles from the ocean, but still salt and tidal water) , but as pollution took it took they would only go 50 miles up, then 40, then finaly they were barely running in the river due to pollution. But as the river was cleaned up, they returned. I have not been back, but 30 years later they bait shops were once again selling crab traps on the mid hudson. So some of the negative impact of our society can be reversed.

[ozark]

In our area (Arkansas) bobcats keep themselves at a stable population. I am told that the male bobcat will kill all the younger cats and that controls the group size to what the territory will hold.
I guess a bobcat could climb up and get itself a turkey off the roost if it wanted to get that high in a tree. I have heard that the owls which can see at night can simply light next to a young turkey (About small chicken size) and take them at will. I am also seeing many more hawks than a few years ago. Rabbits are scarce and hawks could be one cause.
River ottors are on my shoot on sight animal list. They have cleaned out dozens of ponds in my area of many thousand catfish, bass, crappy and break. In ponds there is no place for the fish to hide and a half dozen otters will wipe them out in just a couple days.
Beavers on some occasions have made dams below road crossings causing the water to get too deep for vehicles to cross. This means the dams have to be ripped out occasionally.
But when all is considered I am pretty happy with how the wildlife population changes and then sometimes changes back. I could do without the stinking black bear but most folks likes to have a few around in the area. The elk populaltion is growing pretty fast along the Buffalo River and spreading out into the countryside. I suspect that they will be in my area in a few years. They can do away with a deer plot in one night. That is enough for this report. LOL Ozark

[mshm99]

As a kid growing up here in IL,I remember when you saw a deer you pulled off the road to watch the rare sight for a while.I saw my first deer up close, tied across the front of of a 56'Chevy,right over the motor, where it would stay nice and cool. I know the fella drove around with his hood ornament for a long time ,showing it off. The first deer season was in 1956. About all there was to trap was fox and skunk. Rabbit, tree rats, quail and a few ring neck pheasant in the middle of the state made up the bulk of the hunting. All you needed was a shotgun and a .22.

About girls: Our town was growing, and I asked an old miner where he thought all these new people were coming from? He said " Until dieing becomes more popular than kissing pretty girls, there will continue to be more and more"

I think he summed it up pretty well.

mshm