Creek Bends: Habitat work outweighs raccoon worry here, for now
The masked bandits have gained a news status for land managers across Oklahoma. We will do our part – eventually.
It’s kind of a sad refrain, coming from the home state of the book “Where the Red Fern Grows.”
“Nobody hunts raccoons anymore, so we’re overrun and that’s why we don’t have turkeys and quail anymore.”
That’s what folks say.
I’ve decided the raccoons at Snake Creek will get a pass for this season, we’re on concentrating more on invasive flora and fauna at the moment, redcedar, feral hogs and the like. We have a lot of habitat improvements to make, trash piles to remove, and invasive species to worry about first.
Trappers with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health and Inspection Service (APHIS) maintained a feral hog trap in the creek bottom for several months and removed “quite a few” pigs, according to the main trapper on the job.
My trail cameras picked up two remaining boars, one black, one sandy and black, and both top out about the height of my trail cam, which is set at my belt level. They are apparently too smart to walk into a trap. And I recognize them both from last winter.
The black one and I have a history that needs to come to an end, and soon. I wrote about him last year. Nicknamed him The Coal Boar, a play on the name of outlaw Cole Younger, who always seemed to dodge a fatal bullet.
Two boars don’t do a lot of damage on their own, but if there are boars, there will be sows and piglets and we’ll be right back where we started.
Raccoons are another story and one I, admittedly, took a few weeks to wrap my head around.
I haven’t laid steel since I left Alaska, and it was a different game up there.
Trapping foxes and raccoons when I was a kid was all about extra spending cash. The unexpected benefit was gaining woodsmanship skills for a lifetime. In college, it was furs for money and food for weekends when the dormitory kitchens were closed. Raccoon meat is OK, if you cook it right.
Trapping always is a hot-button issue. Even some hunters aren’t keen on the idea of leg-hold traps.
Like most things that involve killing an animal, it’s all in how you go about it. Trap designs have come a long way since the last time I laid steel, and dog-proof traps will be a necessity here. Stray dogs are essentially an “invasive” here as well.
Cellular-connected trail cams are an added bonus. I plan to use those. Traps need to be checked every 24 hours by regulation, but with the trail cams I’ll know the moment I catch something and on the 40 acres of Snake Creek I’m always within a few hundred yards.
The fact of the matter is landowners need to get back to trapping and I figure we should do our part at Snake Creek if we want to help the birds along and maybe see some quail or turkey back in this part of the county.
Early rounds of research on the wild turkey population decline in Oklahoma this past year showed a staggering level of nest-oriented predation loss. The numbers of predators are only a part of that predation formula, but it is a part of that formula.
“There are two things that impact raccoon populations—trapping and disease,” said Jerrod Davis, furbearer biologist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
Distemper is the most common fatal disease among Oklahoma’s raccoons, especially where the population is unchecked. If you’ve seen sick raccoons in your area, take that as a hint.
Davis is about to embark on a public education drive to encourage trapping. There isn’t much money in it these days, but come next winter the Wildlife Department will be offering classes to teach landowners about trapping as a wildlife land management tool.
“For a raccoon that’s their bread-and-butter. They are nest predators it’s what they do,” Davis said. “Skunks and opossums also are in that category, but only to a degree.”
My question for Davis was if a 40-acre haven on a little clearwater creek could really benefit all that much from a raccoon reduction. How would we know when/if we’ve actually made a difference?
Inventory and activity at traps would be one thing to note.
I’m not a huge fan of deer corn, but have used temporary piles as a tool for thinning the doe population here (supposedly) and for overall deer “inventory.” I’ve resisted establishing a feeder and instead spread it out one bag at a time, periodically, preferably with a dry weather forecast so it’s not lying around and growing mold.
A 40-pound bag typically disappears in three or four days.
This winter I got a raccoon and possum inventory as well. Many more than saw a year prior. The most caught in any one frame was eight raccoons with two opossums, but I guessed at least 10 or 12 hit the spot several evenings.
“It was probably a family unit,” Davis said. “On 40 acres with timber and a creek, you could probably have four or five family units.”
Wait, what!?
That’s 40 or up to 50 raccoons! Basically one raccoon per acre?
Indeed, a 40-acre parcel with the kind of habitat Snake Creek offers, with no trapping practiced by neighboring landowners, likely has a practically endless supply of raccoons, Davis said.
What constitutes a healthy raccoon population depends on the area, he said. If you trap and notice a drop-off in interest at traps (or fewer critters at a feed site) then you’ve likely had an impact.
State regulations recently changed to allow trapping of raccoons year-round with no limit, but Davis still advocates trapping during prime fur season and added that late winter is a prime time.
If we want to tip the odds in favor of nesting birds, then trapping in late winter, just before nesting begins, is likely the best strategy, he said. We can knock back those numbers and create a temporary population dip to give the birds a break.
Live traps are an option but don’t help with the overall problem, he said. The Wildlife Department discourages relocation of raccoons as it likely just adds an issue elsewhere, he said.
So, we’ll add raccoons to the list of “management goals,” but today, I’m firing up the chainsaw to hit some Eastern redcedars and grabbing the hatchet and herbicide to rid this place of some tree-weakening vines, and tree of heaven.
Then, maybe tonight, I’ll get rid of a big ol’ feral boar.