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.

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