The following article is being presented for the reading pleasure of the members of the 

Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny.

The following article was featured in the premier rabbit and hare hunting magazine

THE RABBIT HUNTER

SEPTEMBER 2021   VOLUME 36 NO. 1

HABITAT ON THE ALLEGHENY

Writing and photography

By

Joe Ewing

High HareMan

Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny

 

Fifty years ago, there seemed to be a beagle in every Pennsylvanian’s backyard. If you wanted to hunt, you only had one choice, small game. Rabbit season started in late October and ran until the Monday after Thanksgiving. The buck season ran for two weeks with the possibility of a two-day doe season. Then the late rabbit season started back up.

Today, Pennsylvania whitetail deer reign as king. The official publication of the PGC, Pennsylvania Game News, runs deer stories month after month. Deer hunting seasons run four or more months. Whitetail deer hunting is universally elevated higher than religion. Schools close and Sunday hunting will require the churches be shuttered too. Even the Preacher hunts deer on Sunday. Anyone degrading deer or deer hunting is looked down upon as some kind of nut case. Countless deer hunters incessantly claim, “there are no deer in Pennsylvania”. Just take a drive any evening through farm country and you’ll see hundreds of whitetail deer devouring farmer’s crops. What you won’t see is the subtle damage deer are doing to our forests.

In a recently published book titled, IT’S ALL ABOUT HABITAT, Pennsylvania author Joseph Krug, begins his narrative by saying, “Sometimes, the best wildlife habitat improvement tool we have (when used legally) is the gun.” Krug is talking about whitetail deer. He goes on to say, “If you are hesitant to embrace this fact, I suggest you enjoy the short-term gratification of artificially high deer populations because the long-term consequences are certain to follow. Trust me –you won’t like the repercussions, and neither will your children and grandchildren.”

Author, Joe Krug

Award winning conservationist, Joe Krug, has dedicated nearly four decades of his life to better understand and improve the quality of wildlife habitat. Joe served on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF). He holds life memberships in the NWTF, NRA, The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the National Trappers Association. He received local, regional, state and national recognition for his wildlife conservation efforts and has received many awards too numerous to mention here.

Krug readily admits, like many of us, “The majority of my training was earned in the proverbial ‘School of Hard Knocks’.” For more than thirty-five years Krug has grown, planted, cared for and experimented with anything that grows. He admits, “This was a better education than anything I would have received in a classroom.” Krug asserts he has spent much of his adult life enhancing wildlife habitat. He has seen his efforts “constantly exposed to the foraging activity of deer” which gave him an incredible educational experience. Krug has a clear understanding of the impact deer have on our forests and the need to control their numbers.

One of these repercussions is Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a prion disease,  which affects deer, elk, reindeer, sika deer and moose. As of January 2021, CWD in free-ranging deer, elk and moose has been reported in at least 25 states as well as two provinces in Canada. As of January 2021, CWD is found in 14 counties in PA and in 339 counties in 25 states in free ranging cervids.

The Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny established a habitat and cover project late in 2019. Complete information on how we launched our project can be found in the pages of the June 2020 issue of THE RABBIT HUNTER.

In the spring and summer of 2020, the hinge-cut trees sprang to life providing immediate summer nesting and escape cover for the multiplying cottontail rabbit population. During the winter of ‘20- ‘21 the buildup of snow atop the brush piles offered thermal cover. In the spring of 2021, the stumps were sending up new shoots making ultimate overhead cover for the small animals.

Winter of 2019-2020

September 2020

 

 

As promised, we did not cut the many maple saplings, however, during the winter of 2020-2021 the rabbits completely girdled the bark from most. The brush piles our members built proved impenetrable to the beagles and we hoped to predators as well. Apparently, whitetail deer and Cottontail rabbits are not fond of Fire Cherry (Prunus pensylvanica) sometimes called Bird Cherry, Pin Cherry or Red Cherry or black-birch sprouts as no visible signs of feeding have been observed. This may be the reason these trees grow so prolifically in this area.

Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus 2 (RHDV2), a highly contagious foreign animal disease, has been detected in wild hares and rabbits in the United States. It has been identified in wild rabbit populations throughout the western states. RHDV2 poses a threat to Pennsylvania’s cottontail rabbit and snowshoe hare populations. RHDV2 has recently been detected in Cobb County, Georgia and Lake County, Florida in domestic and wild rabbits.

EASTERN COTTONTAIL RABBIT In the ‘80s and ‘90s “rabbitat” seemed endless. The strip-mines of Western Pennsylvania, stripped during the ‘50s and ‘60s, were maturing and turning into prime cover and habitat. We enjoyed the privilege of hunting on a small farm in southern Clarion County bordered by old strip-mines. It’s here you would find my friend Andy and I, along with others, on Saturdays for several years.  We hunted in the back yard, front yard, vegetable garden and around the outbuildings until the farm was sold and stripped for coal.

In the late ‘70s new laws forced strip-mines to be quickly restored. Strip miners planted thousands if not millions of evergreen trees. These restored strip-mines became loaded with rabbits. The earth was so overly compacted from the restoration process there were no holes so the poor rabbits had to run. If we didn’t come home with the limit something was terribly wrong. I’ve talked with many rabbit hunters from our area who hunted with considerable enjoyment and still love to share the many memories of the “strip-mines”.

As the evergreen trees grew, the canopy blocked out the sun and the ground underneath became barren and blanketed with pine needles. The cottontails gradually disappeared. Today, the evergreen trees have lived their lives and are slowly dying. Ground cover is gradually being reestablished where the sun can reach the ground even though much of the undergrowth is profuse with invasive species. Cottontail rabbits are returning.

The National Geographic Website says, “Materials burned in a planned fire include dead grass, fallen tree branches, dead trees, and thick undergrowth. Controlled burns can also reduce insect populations and destroy invasive plants. In addition, fire can be rejuvenating. It returns nutrients to the soil in the ashes of vegetation that could otherwise take years to decompose. And after a fire, the additional sunlight and open space in a forest can help young trees and other plants start to grow.” 

Large areas of these former strip-mines have been converted to PA Game Lands controlled by the PGC. Small habitat projects have been completed at a slow and occasional pace. The PGC mows large expanses for food plots for deer. They believe in controlled burning or prescribed burning to keep large areas in grassland.

 SNOWSHOE HARE-In a recent issue of GAME & FISH EAST writer Bryce M. Towsley urges hunters, “to hunt for lesser-known species to make their hunting lives more interesting.” One of the game animals Towsley mentions is the snowshoe hare. Towsley describes the “varying hare” in great depth. Towsley describes hare cover in Vermont saying, “hares prefer thick evergreen forest; they love cedar and balsam, particularly if it is mixed with some young hardwood growth. Look for them in the mixed alder and evergreen swamps along beaver bogs and low-lying streams, as well as in the thick evergreens often found at higher elevation. Any place with in their range that offers them thick cover to hide, mixed with good food sources, will almost always hold hare.”

Towsley’s descriptions mirror exactly as I have depicted hare habitat in Maine and in the Adirondacks of New York State in articles I’ve written. Cover and habitat as described is seldom found on the Allegheny High Plateau. The plateau does not have thick evergreen forest, cedar or balsam. Exceedingly thick cover is not found on the plateau. We do not enjoy mixed alder and evergreen swamps and few beaver bogs.

The high plateau has young hardwood growth where the loggers have clear-cut large areas of timber. Where the sunlight finds the earth great numbers of seedlings spring to life providing overhead cover and food for the snowshoe hare as well as ruffed grouse and other game animals. Even in winters with little or no snow cover snowshoe hare survive with ease in these clear-cuts. Pennsylvania’s snowshoe hare biologists claim hare require “ten-thousand stems to the acre to survive.”

The PGC website asserts, “Snowshoes in Pennsylvania inhabit mixed deciduous forests with conifers and escape cover, such as rhododendron and mountain laurel. They favor younger brushy areas, those logged or burned seven to 10 years ago. Hares also live-in swamps where cedar, spruce or tamarack grow. Dense stands of aspen or poplar, interspersed with pines, might support hares. In Pennsylvania, high country such as ridge tops, mountains, high swamps and plateaus harbor most hares.

As do cottontail rabbits, snowshoes move into forestland opened up by fires, high winds, ice storms and clearcutting. While cottontails build up good populations in clear-cut areas in one or two years, snowshoes — with a lower reproductive rate and different food and cover requirements — need up to seven years to take hold.”

Habitat loss is affecting every game species from water fowl to the lowly cottontail rabbit, snowshoe hare and even the fish in our lakes and streams. Invasive plants, invasive insects and invasive diseases are slowly but surely condemning our forests and our game animals to irredeemable losses.

Follow us on Facebook @ facebook.com/BigWoodsHareHunters/

and

On our blog @ https://bigwoodsharehuntersoftheallegheny.blogspot.com/

and

@ Snowshoe Hare Hunting or Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny

Just “google” us.

 AFTER ACTION REPORT FROM THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS OF NY

I

NEW YORK STATE!

2021 STARS OF THE HUNT:

Bo

Hollie

Maidu

Mo

Music

Nasty

Poco

Sidney

The beagle posse was hot on the scent of an elusive Adirondack snowshoe hare. Beagle music was reverberating off the scenic landscape like a Mezzo-soprano wailing at Carnegie Hall. The hounds were chasing snowshoe hare somewhere east of Old Forge, NY, the western gateway to Adirondack Park. Although the beagles were hunting in eastern New York State, only 200-miles from New York City, they were a universe away from the pollution of city lights and the endless and fiercely competitive struggle for wealth and power.

I was hunting snowshoe hare with the famed Baker-Towner group. My beagles and me, for the third consecutive year, were elated and honored to be hunting with these great hunters and their great hare hounds. 

We were enjoying the simple life. This is life at its finest.

I love New York, Maine and the Allegheny and all these great places love me back.

Hunter of the hunt:

Nick Ochs

Above: Nick with his trophy hare and with beagles, Nasty, Hollie, Music and Sid.

LT waits in the thick underbrush for the snowshoe hare to show himself.

Nick spots a hare.

The beautiful mountains of the Adirondacks.

Mr. Mark Baker, patriarch of snowshoe hare hunting. 

Veteran snowshoe hare hunter, Roy Towner.

Snowshoe hare hunters L-R Joe Ewing, Mark Baker, Roy Towner and RT Corso.

Mr. Matt Baker, owner and handler of Mo, Poco and Maidu.

Nick Ochs, the only successful hare hunter of the hunt.

L-R Nick Ochs, Joe Ewing, Roy Towner and Mark Baker.

Hound of the hunt, Sidney Crosby.

Fourth Lake in the Fulton Chain of Lakes.

Labrador Lodge, our temporary forward basecamp.

Hare hunters relax while watching hare hunting videos on YouTube.

Hungry hare hunters line up for Thanksgiving Dinner in the Adirondacks.

Mr. & Mrs. Roy Towner.

Mr. Mark Baker.

Thanksgiving Dinner is served.

L-R, Army Veteran Joe Ewing, Marine Corp Veteran LT Corso and Marine Corp Veteran Roy Towner.

Mr. LT Corso.

The hind foot of Nick's Adirondack snowshoe hare.

BIG WOODS HARE HUNTERS of the ALLEGHENY

HONONRED TO BE A SMALL PART OF

CLARION COUNTY YOUTH FIELD DAYS 2021

The Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny are proud to play a small part in this great program for the youth of Clarion County.

Court Battle: Delisting the Yellowstone Grizzly Bear

THE LATEST FROM

SPORTSMEN'S ALLIANCE

"When animal-rights activists win sportsmen lose."

The Importance of Young Forests

THE BELLWETHER

THE IMPORTANCE OF YOUNG FORESTS

BIG BUCK PICTURES

 BIG WOODS HARE HUNTERS of the ALLEGHENY MEMBER AND

MEMBER OF THE ROCKTON MOUNTAIN BOYS CHAPTER,

Marty Hrin

shares photos

MONTANA MULE DEER 

MONTANA MULE DEER 

PENNSYLVANIA WHITETAIL

CONGRATULATIONS MARTY!

 

from jtowner@

16inch--8pnt--11:00 Sat Dec 4

Respectfully submitted from the rank and file

Ol Roy

 

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING

Written by

Joe Ewing

 

I thought I’d seen and heard just about everything. I’d never before heard of a conservation project like this one. An article in a southern Pennsylvania newspaper made no sense. This was quickly followed by an opinion piece in my bi-weekly sporting paper which shed more light on the whole debacle.

Some describe this animal as “cute and cuddly”, however, if they would ever see this mammal or his family members in action minds would be changed quickly. I considered the introduction of grey wolves out west a bad idea but this one is pushing the wolf idea. I totally understand and subscribe to the balance of nature thing but to enhance a predator, especially a climbing predator as ruthless as this one, which will place all endangered species at increased risk makes no sense. The nauseating idea got me troubled and agitated. Can you tell? Every rabbit, hare hunter and small game hunter should at least be concerned if not outraged. 

The Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, a division of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), is placing fisher nesting boxes in Forbes State Forest in southern Pennsylvania. The fisher nesting box project was spearheaded by the state Bureau of Forestry with nesting boxes being placed by volunteers throughout the Forbes State Forest.

 

Courtesy: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Fisher, AKA black cat, fisher cat, tree otter, tree fox, fisher weasel, pekan, and Oochik (Cree),

Fisher populations are not declining in Pennsylvania. Quite the contrary. Fishers, a member of the weasel family, are observed quite often by hunters. More and more frequently fishers are seen dead on Pennsylvania highways and caught accidentally in traps. My own beagles have enjoyed a fisher chase or two and a good friend and fellow beagler lost chickens to fishers. The PGC launched a restricted fisher trapping season in 2010 and Pennsylvania now has a fisher trapping season in 16 management units. After an initial harvest of 152, the annual take by trappers has trended generally upward, reaching a record 504 last year. 

The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s (PGC) own website states, “Today, fisher populations are well established and increasing throughout southwestern, central and northern regions of the state, and fishers have become established even in some rural and suburban habitats once thought unsuitable for this adaptive forest carnivore. As fisher populations have increased, the Game Commission has adopted a scientifically based and highly conservative management plan to ensure that the fisher will remain an important forest carnivore in Pennsylvania forests.”

I wonder if this nesting box idea is part of the PGC’s “scientifically based management plan” or did the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry go rogue? Is the PGC aware of the project?

 

Courtesy Google Earth

 

Map Complements: PGC

 

 

Due to early colonial development fishers declined as forest their habitats declined. As native forests were cleared in the 19th century, fishers disappeared from Pennsylvania. The last Pennsylvania populations were reported in the PA counties of Clearfield, Elk, Cameron, Clinton, Potter and Sullivan. Fishers were extirpated (destroyed completely: wiped out) around the beginning of the 20th century in Pennsylvania. Due to the secretive nature of fisher and scarcity of records and accounts during the last century, it is difficult to determine the exact timing of fisher extinction. Sixty or more years after the fisher’s disappearance, biologists in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Michigan and Wisconsin sought to re-establish fishers as this is what wildlife biologists do best.

The Allegheny National Forest and private timber companies were complaining the forests were being devastated by a bark eating, prickly little critter. The porkies were not only eating the trees they were eating the ANF’s aluminum road signs, destroying porches and treated wood decks on hunting camps and summer cottages and eating their way into buildings. Houndsmen of all types were complaining of too many porcupines and pulling too many quills. I’ve personally pulled thousands of porcupine quills over the years.

In 1969, West Virginia reportedly reintroduced 23 fishers obtained from New Hampshire. Fisher populations in West Virginia have since expanded throughout that state and into western Maryland, northern Virginia, and southwestern Pennsylvania, exactly where Forbes State Forest is located.

As I remember back, word on the street at the time declared that the Pennsylvania Game Commission (Pennsylvania State University and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources were in on the scheme) “reintroduced” fishers by trading fishers for wild turkeys with New York, other states and possibly Canada. This was around 1994-1998 and the unstated reason was to combat the out-of-control porcupine population, however, the PGC’s stated mission is to maintain and restore wildlife populations. The fishers were relocated to the Allegheny National Forest and numerous sites in the PA counties of Forest and Elk. According to official reports 190 fishers (87 males, 97 females, 6 of unknown sex) were reintroduced in six sites in northern Pennsylvania.

Today, there are more porcupines than ever on the Allegheny High Plateau.

Today, in my humble opinion there are more porcupines than ever on the Allegheny High Plateau.

 

 

Fisher Nesting Box

A Maine study of fisher stomach contents found porcupine, snowshoe hare, wild turkey and smaller rodents. One surprising study from Maine indicated fishers will occasionally attack the much larger Canadian lynx. It appears the fisher seizes the lynx and holds on until the cat suffocates. These findings are interesting which brings up the question what do fishers really eat?

MAINE BILL LIMITING HUNTING WITH DOGS VOTED DOWN The Joint Committee on lnland Fisheries and Wildlife in Maine unanimously voted “ought not to pass,” killing bill LD-1265 for the legislative session. LD-1265 prohibited coyote hunting with dogs and removed an existing exemption for hunting-at-large statute. The bill removed an exemption for hunting dogs while pursuing game. Current law exempts dogs actively engaged in hunting, such as hounds running bears and raccoons or beagles pursuing rabbits.  LD-1265 would have lumped hunting dogs in with feral or stray dogs chasing or harassing wildlife, making owners criminals. This was another attempt by anti-hunters to backdoor ban any and all kinds of hunting with dogs. The bill was carefully crafted to deceive legislators in passing an outright ban on hound hunting Maine officials from Sportsmen’s Alliance indicated. -HH

Indiana University of Pennsylvania and PGC conducted a fisher diet study from 2002 to 2014 and found that rodents were fisher’s preferred prey and went on to claim fisher were not eating turkeys. I found an amazing statement while reading the IUP study, “Our most noteworthy and novel finding was the presence of fisher remains in 11 (12%) stomachs.”

Most of the fisher stomach studies take place in the winter during trapping season. I wonder what a fisher’s stomach contains during the spring and summer months?

Wild turkey populations are down, grouse populations are depleted and I could go on and on but the point is we claim we don’t know what fishers eat. If fishers eat snowshoe hare, wild turkey in Maine, you can bet they won’t turn down a turkey, snowshoe hare or Appalachian cottontail in PA. I’m sure a fisher would never raid the nest of ground nesting birds.

Several issues ago I quoted a study by Emily Boyd of the PGC on Appalachian cottontails. The study showed finding this very limited species on Game Lands in southern Pennsylvania counties. If you compare maps, which I have provided, you will find Forbes State Forest and these Game Lands where these threatened and rare cottontails are found are in the same neck of the woods.

Early in this report I indicated I’d never heard of a conservation project intended to help fishers and I found several wildlife writers who agreed with me. With a little research it become quite clear projects of this type are not rare. A fisher nesting

MICHIGAN INTRODUES ABSURD DOG LAW A Michigan State Senator has introduced legislation (SB-395) that prohibits a dog being outside for more than 30 minutes when the temperature is below 32 degrees. The bill only allows the dog to be outside longer than 30 minutes if the owner is present and participating in an undefined recreational activity. This is just another example of unwise legislation which attacks dog owners and could have dire impacts for sporting-dog owners. -HH   OREGON INITIATIVE PETITION 13 Oregon’s ballot initiative would end hunting. The initiative would prohibit the killing of any animal except in self-defense. Breeding of domestic animals, dogs and cats or livestock, would constitute sexual assault of an animal. -HH

box study by the University of Minnesota-Duluth in Minnesota was started in 2019. Another nesting box project is ongoing in British Columbia. 

The British Columbia study stated, “A cannibalism event was also recorded on video at one den box. A female with two kits had left to forage for several hours when a male fisher arrived at the structure. The male chewed at the opening to the den box and, over approximately half-an-hour, enlarged it sufficiently to enter the structure. The male was then observed to remove one kit at a time from the structure with one eaten on top of the den box.” There you go, cute.

 Another study conducted in British Columbia found snowshoe hare was the common prey species. Studies in Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Minnesota revealed the same.

Ninety-nine-point nine percent of the population have never seen a snowshoe hare in the wild and so would never know these species are under constant threat. Even a greater majority of the public have never heard of the Appalachian cottontail and would not know they even exist.  

The bottom line: predators, especially fishers, do not need help from humans no matter how cute people may think these animals. Grey wolves look cute to some,      too. The whole gruesome idea seems counter-productive to me.

In Pennsylvania the Game Commission is in charge of managing the wildlife and we do not need other branches of government and bureaucrats going rogue.

 

Follow us on Facebook @ facebook.com/BigWoodsHareHunters/

and

On our blog @ https://bigwoodsharehuntersoftheallegheny.blogspot.com/

and

@ Snowshoe Hare Hunting or Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny

Just “google” us.