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Find the fawn
mogley98
Member Posts: 18,291 ✭✭✭✭
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Why don't we go to school and work on the weekends and take the week off!
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Too old to live...too young to die...
quote:Originally posted by Doc
This is why predators have a highly developed sense of smell.
Also why many baby animals, especially fawns, have no smell at all.
Ever smelled one? They are completely devoid of odor.
That's a fact, I've watched Foxes walk within yards of a Fawn and walk right on past.
Another thing I've noticed is when a Doe stashes her fawn, she will often do it in a high Deer traffic area. My guess is the area is full of scent and the combination of reduced scent on the Fawn and the general scent levels, make them hard to detect.
When they are the most vulnerable is when they drop a fawn, and before the Doe can clean it up and move it to another spot.
Two reasons I actively hunt Foxes (or Yotes) in February, one is the pelts are good and another is to increase the Deer herd and small game populations. It's also good to hunt Foxes early, before they drop a litter. I always feel guilty leaving litter without parents, even if they are varmints. Though it is easier to hunt Fox when they have a litter, the male is hunting pretty much 24/7 early on and they are both hunting pretty much 24/7 when the pups are weaned. They'll actually leave straight line trails back to the burrow. And use the burrows year after year, it pays to remember where the burrows are.
Another thing I'll do is muzzle my dogs and walk a field before a farmer discs it. And also before they cut hay. I must have saved a thousand Fawns over the years.
We have a couple of counties in Idaho that are closed to fox hunting
and they are about the only place they are seen on a regular basis.
Very seldom see a fox where coyote numbers are up.
Seems there is a correlation between fox and coyote numbers.
We have a couple of counties in Idaho that are closed to fox hunting
and they are about the only place they are seen on a regular basis.
Very seldom see a fox where coyote numbers are up.
Noticed the same thing, we have no Yotes (Jackals) around here (though a few Wolves), three hundred miles to the east and Jackals are fairly common. We have a bunch of Foxes, in multi years cycles.
It seems like the predators, Lynx, Yotes, Wolves and Foxes help keep each other in check. It makes sense, one predator will kill the other predators around, to protect the litter and the food supply.
Fox numbers around here are mainly controlled by other Foxes and hunters. Male Foxes are very territorial and will not tolerate other males being around. I've seen many torn up, starved, stunted, male Foxes on the verge of death. And three females living within four hundred yards of each other.
One thing they have come up with recently, is that the size of a Fox litter is proportional to the available territory. the fewer Foxes the bigger the litters. Hunting as overpopulation relief is a short termed stradigy, they seem to bounce back with a vigor.
What some people don't get is there is no magic eco balance, it runs in multi years cycles of feast and famine and is so interrelated between species that any really accurate predictions are impossible to make. Too many variables, available food that predators tend to deplete and then get weak and die of disease or starvation. The prey animals go through the same cycles, of feast and famine, disease from overpopulation and increases in predator populations. The weather and winter plays a big part.
Game managers try to computer model population densities and predict future game populations with little real success, all we can really do is try to smooth out the bumps in the population levels a little.
Not long ago (twenty years or so) they started a program to orally inoculate Fox against Rabbis and K-9 Meningitis, the Fox population exploded. They mapped all the known Fox burrows and would fly over with a helicopter and drop inoculation baits.
quote:Originally posted by Doc
This is why predators have a highly developed sense of smell.
Also why many baby animals, especially fawns, have no smell at all.
Ever smelled one? They are completely devoid of odor.
thought that went without saying
Seems there is a correlation between fox and coyote numbers.
We have a couple of counties in Idaho that are closed to fox hunting
and they are about the only place they are seen on a regular basis.
Very seldom see a fox where coyote numbers are up.
TRUE!!!! illinois is that way you either see coyotes or you see foxes, not both in the same area.
way down in our wolf pack areas. In this case "size" does matter!![:D]
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