Balancing natural populations?

[NancyNGA]

A lot of folks here seem to be against killing any living thing. Where do you draw the line? What do you think about situations where things are getting out of balance---both animals and plants.

Just to give some quick examples:

When I moved to Georgia there were a lot of rabbits out in the country. Then the coyotes moved in and there are no more rabbits. Coyotes can't catch squirrels. Squirrels are everywhere.

Turtles have taken over our pond. They have killed most of the fish. Eventually the turtles will die off due to lack of food, but if you stock more fish, the cycle will repeat.

In the woods, the water oaks are taking over. Their shallow root system sucks up the surface water before it gets deep for other trees. They grow fast and are crowding out the slower growing oaks, and even fast growing poplars. They are good for nothing. They uproot easily. Squirrels do not even like water oak acorns.

Would you try to control this on the local level (on your own property), or let nature take its course?

I'm just curious. My mood swings from one day to the next on this.

 

[AZ Jim]

A lot of folks here seem to be against killing any living thing. Where do you draw the line? What do you think about situtations where things are getting out of balance---both animals and plants.

Just to give some quick examples:

When I moved to Georgia there were a lot of rabbits out in the country. Then the coyotes moved in and there are no more rabbits. Coyotes can't catch squirrels. Squirrels are everywhere.

Turtles have take over our pond. They have killed most of the fish. Eventually the turtles will die off due to lack of food, but if you stock more fish, the cycle will repeat.

In the woods, the water oaks are taking over. Their shallow root system sucks up the surface water before it gets deep for other trees. They grow fast and are crowding out the slower growing oaks, and even fast growing poplars. They are good for nothing. They uproot easily. Squirrels do not even like water oak acorns.

Would you try to control this on the local level (on your own property), or let nature take its course?

I'm just curious. My mood swings from one day to the next on this.

At one point Nancy my family owned 40 acres in a high California valley, we could only control a few things on it. Nature cannot be fenced out. I am kinda like you in that I know those things happen but have no way to "fix" it. I live on a 150x75 lot in Arizona and don't have an immediate need to control anything. Man has moved in and stole animal habitat and killed off the animals that weren't in harmony with our lifestyle. Wolves and bears, mountain lions used to maintain population control over coyotes and other predators but we killed them all off. I don't know what will happen in the future but it probably won't be good for animals. I am not against killing animals raised for that purpose because it feeds us. I am not even against the licensed hunter because game management issues licenses only in the numbers needed to manage population so on those winter days when the snow is deep and the trees have had less growth in the lower branches for deer to feed on, less will starve to death. I am against the trophy hunter who kills for his personal satisfaction and to brag about how he fearlessly hid in a tree with a telescopic sight on a high powered rifle and killed the animal now with it's head or antlers hanging on his wall.

 

[rt3]

Biologists who study these things use computers and math models called predator-prey models, logistic equations for humans and variations for plants. The degree of effect of human interference depends on the complexity of the biosphere. Second order biospheres, such as predator prey, are easily affected by the introduction or reduction of the predator to flatten out the cycle. Wild life authorities use this information in increasing/ decreasing hunting lic, shifting herd feeding grounds etc. 3rd order systems such as plants follow hysteresis equations and have stable limit cycles called attractors. These are very stable and all of the enzyme systems in your body follow these models. It was the plants gift to the animal world. On the other hand if these systems are whacked hard enough they rarely recover. This is the reason why wet lands areas must be bought out and set up for preservation away from land fills, oil and gravel commercial interests.
Control of your own depends on the level,of resources you have available , tractors, equip. Etc. sorry to sound like the County dept. of Ag. Guy but that is the way it is. As a side note you should contact your local, there are many subsidized federal programs that could help you out.

 

[NancyNGA]

I have *some* resources like you mention, rt3, but I don't know how much time I want to invest. Since the pond is a relatively closed community, one time I decided to work on the turtle population. This is a great turtle trap I made from PVC pipe and chicken wire. We trapped 6 turtles in 24 hours on two different occasions. The problem---didn't know what to do with them when I caught them. They are tough little buggers. (Actually some are not so little.)

 

[tnthomas]

In this county killing coyotes does not require a permit, I have no problem with them, just wish they could catch squirrels....got plenty of wabbits too.

Turtle soup?

 

[NancyNGA]

...Turtle soup?

Yes, but....you have to kill them first. I should Google a how-to video. Did you ever eat turtle soup? Sounds .

 

[rt3]

Nice, you should to a bed and breakfast, with duck hunting,
seriously which ecology are you trying to shift?

 

[tnthomas]

Yes, but....you have to kill them first. I should Google a how-to video. Did you ever eat turtle soup? Sounds .

Here's some turtle soup video google hits

 

[SeaBreeze]

We trapped 6 turtles in 24 hours on two different occasions. The problem---didn't know what to do with them when I caught them.

Any way to relocate them to a nearby area, where they won't have such a negative effect on the fish population?

 

[NancyNGA]

Nice, you should to a bed and breakfast, with duck hunting,
seriously which ecology are you trying to shift?

When I bought the property the pond had a nice balance of bass, bream, catfish and crappie, and a few turtles. I just thought it would be nice to have some fish in the pond again, but maybe that is just not meant to be. The turtle population has decreased since most of the fish have gone. I know you have to restock fish occasionally, but it just seems pointless. I understand turtles once they reach about 3" have few natural predators (like squirrels). Nature has to get them at the egg stage.

Any way to relocate them to a nearby area, where they won't have such a negative effect on the fish population?

I dumped the handful I caught in a city creek near my house that is already loaded with them. Then didn't trap any more, because that was a bad thing to do, imo. I wouldn't wish them on anyone. Guns made me nervous at the time, so I gave up. That was years ago. Maybe I'll give it another go one day.

On a lighter note, I was successful in getting rid of acres of kudzu and a lot of privet (goats).

 

[NancyNGA]

Nice, you should to a bed and breakfast, with duck hunting...

I forgot to add rt3, turtles kill ducks and geese also, especially the little ones. They sneak up in the water underneath and grab their feet.

 

[Debby]

What a nice thread. Love it. Brings to mind suffering animals, violence..... I just read an article about a dog who got half her face cut off by someone.....yes, the dog must be 'different' because the comments were all about love, anger, grief, sorrow....

Nature is nature and guided by instincts and necessity. But we don't like it when nature does what nature does, so we step in and take over the killing. Much like in Alberta where they dig the oil out of the ground where the woodland caribou live and raise their calves (putting the species at significant risk of ultimate extinction!) and the Alberta government steps in and kill wolves by poisoning and shooting them (and burning pups in their dens I've heard) from aircraft and the digging goes on and expands. Got to protect those caribou don't we?

We are so special aren't we with our 'big brains'.

 

[NancyNGA]

Debby, I think I might agree with you, but not quite sure???

The natural order of things is...weaker species fail and may become extinct and the stronger ones survive and thrive, then the strong ones boom and bust, and we start all over again. And that would be OK with me, too, I guess. I've actually wished many times the folks ahead of me had not built the pond/dam. It was probably the unnatural (human) event that interfered with the balance of nature. And without it, it would be much easier to not actually witness nature happening. It can happen much faster than I imagined and not always pretty.:shrug:

 

[Debby]

To simplify, my feelings are that we humans should not be interfering with wildlife populations and their 'numbers'. Let nature do what it does on it's own and leave no footprint wherever you go. (we're not good at that!)

 

[Underock1]

To simplify, my feelings are that we humans should not be interfering with wildlife populations and their 'numbers'. Let nature do what it does on it's own and leave no footprint wherever you go. (we're not good at that!)

I agree, Debby, up to a point. "Balance" is just our own idea of how we think things should be. That does not mean I don't think we should exercise some control in our self defense. Save the rain forest for sure. What we are doing is adjusting the environment to suit our own needs and desires. We are no different than the beaver. So we've got a pond full of turtles instead of fish. We prefer fish, but the turtles are happy. "Nature" with a capital "N" really doesn't give a hoot.

 

[Debby]

Yes Underock, we've got a man made pond in our front yard but we've allowed it to be wild to the point where the muskrat that took up residence in it is just another perk despite her effect on the water lilies that were there. And then there's the wild hares that munch all over our lawns (and I'm just crossing my fingers that he never spots my garden ) And the catipllars usually get transported to the furthest side of the woods to finish their life cyle and slugs get their one and only 'air transept' to the furthest side of what I refer to as the wild garden if I find them in my veggies.

The little mice that I catch in live traps get carried away and released on the far side of a wide stream that funds through the end of the property. I actually love those little mice, they're so tiny and cute (mind you they really stink)that we've never had killing traps. Couldn't do that at all.

 

[NancyNGA]

OK so I should just keep the turtles and think positively. That is the easist thing to do.

Stocking fish is a lot of work, even if there were no turtles. I will enjoy watching the turtles starve themselves out because they are sort of mean (not really, it's just their cute way). They do bite, but it's usually a case of mistaken identity. No water snakes now. But I don't like to swim there anymore anyway.

No fish and no bullfrogs around will keep the trespassers down. And the only time I ever go fishing is when someone comes to visit, and that's not often. Some tresspassers came around about the third summer and cleaned out every bullfrog on the place. The bullfrogs cannot come back. I did enjoy hearing them. That is probably the one thing I miss a lot.

However I still have to fix the dam because it is a category II dam and requires state inspection (darn government regulations!). I was planning on replacing the standpipe with a siphon drainage system because that draws stagnant water out from the bottom instead of draining healthy water from the top. But if there are only going to be turtles in there, then it doesn't matter. Normally this is the dry time of year when you do stuff like that but we've had an unusually wet August. I *should* get that done this year.

Probably all this scientific research stuff about predator-prey models and logistics equations is a lot of hocus-pocus, anyway, like global warming. If there were any validity to it there wouldn't ever be any mistakes made in managing wildlife populations.

 

[Underock1]

Yes Underock, we've got a man made pond in our front yard but we've allowed it to be wild to the point where the muskrat that took up residence in it is just another perk despite her effect on the water lilies that were there. And then there's the wild hares that munch all over our lawns (and I'm just crossing my fingers that he never spots my garden ) And the catipllars usually get transported to the furthest side of the woods to finish their life cyle and slugs get their one and only 'air transept' to the furthest side of what I refer to as the wild garden if I find them in my veggies.

The little mice that I catch in live traps get carried away and released on the far side of a wide stream that funds through the end of the property. I actually love those little mice, they're so tiny and cute (mind you they really stink)that we've never had killing traps. Couldn't do that at all.

You're a good person, Debbie. I've used those traps. The ones where they go in head first and the door drops behind them. I kept the bird seed in the basement, and a pregnant mouse must have gotten in. I must have trapped and released a dozen mice, not to mention the few dead ones I found surrounded by bird seed.