From the desk of the High HareMan.
The following story appeared in the October, 2017 issue of Better Beagling magazine. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author.
All photography is the work of the author unless otherwise specified.
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Tightly held, almost secret spot in the ANF.
RAMBLINGS FROM AN OVER HEATED HARE HUNTER
Joe Ewing
Big Woods Hare Hunters of the Allegheny |
It’s
summer on the Allegheny and I hate it.
As I pound out these few words using the sticking keys on my old Underwood® it’s the dog days of summer. I’ve had my fill! It’s way too hot and way too humid. The hounds lay lethargic, their tongues
hanging out hoping to catch what little breeze there might be. Most mornings are too hot and humid to even
bother getting them out. Afternoon
thunderstorms drive up the humidity. I
spend my days wishing for the cool, refreshing winds out of the north. Most people wish for the renewal that spring
brings. I wish for autumn which brings
the season of harvest and cooler temps.
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| My "word processor". |
The
big woods, the Pennsylvania Wilds, and the Allegheny High Plateau are majestic
with all their lush forest greenery thanks to the abundance of rain. Pennsylvania is home to
millions of acres of unspoiled forests and mountains. Turkey season,
a big thing in PA, has been over for a while.
The initial enthusiasm for trout fishing seems to have dwindled although
the boys from the local rod and gun club continue stocking the streams with
pen-reared trout. Yes, there still are
trout fishing diehards just like us hare hunting diehards. Logging operations are at their highest
during the summer. Oil and gas
operations along with shale gas explorations are slowed, apparently from the
low prices.
However,
things are not quiet on the Allegheny.
The highways and byways are buzzing with campers, hikers, off road and
outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds. The
woods, forests, rivers, lakes and streams have been inundated by multitudes of
“yinzers”, “um-uppers”, “flatlanders” and just plain tourists. Tourist season is at its height on the
Allegheny. Tightly held, almost secret
spots only known to the locals, have been plundered and desecrated by the
thundering herds thanks to that newfangled thing called “social media”.
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| The woods, forests, rivers, lakes and streams
have been inundated by multitudes of “yinzers”, “um-uppers”, “flatlanders” and
just plain tourists. |
The annual timber rattlesnake hunt
on the Sinnemahoning
was successfully held in June. Pennsylvania’s 2.2 million acres of state forests provide
the largest blocks of timber rattlesnake range remaining in the Northeastern
states. The town of Sinnemahoning is located dead center in the
Wilds of Pennsylvania not far from the village of Benezette. Benezette is the official capital of
Pennsylvania’s elk herd. Pennsylvania’s elk herd is the largest
free-roaming elk herd in the Northeastern United States and Benezette is the
home of the Elk Country Visitor Center which
sits on a 245-acre site on Winslow Hill. The new and huge elk center includes a scenic
view from windows looking out on elk viewing areas and food plots. It also features a theater which presents multimedia
programs. Informational exhibits involve
visitors in the sights and sounds of the hardwood forest, the world of the elk
and wildlife. The site also includes a
series of wildlife watching trails, observation areas and viewing blinds. The height of the season begins in the fall
with the bugling of the majestic bull elk.
Beware, when elk watching season is in full swing the narrow mountain roads
become choked with crazed elk watchers. Getting around by car can be messy.
The whitetail dropped their young in June. Fawns seem to be running everywhere. It’s anybody’s guess how many of this year’s
crop of fawns will make it through the next winter. The bucks are in velvet. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has recently
been found in a free-ranging whitetail in the PA Wilds (Clearfield County) and
doomsday is predicted among biologists and game managers. In Pennsylvania, CWD has been an increasing
threat. The disease also exists among wild deer in the area of southcentral
Pennsylvania. Twenty-five free-ranging
deer tested positive for CWD during 2016.
And an additional four CWD-positive deer have been detected since,
raising to 51 the total of CWD-positives detected within the DMA 2 since 2012.
Right, a newborn fawn hides in plain sight.
While the spread of CWD in Pennsylvania is a worry to the
state’s deer herd, this latest CWD-positive brings fear because of the
proximity to Pennsylvania’s elk range. More
than 100 elk are tested for CWD each year and, thus far, the disease has not
been detected among the state’s elk. Brain
worm, carried by whitetail deer and deadly to moose, elk and other large game
animals have biologists worried also.
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| Young cottontails seem to be everywhere. |
When I venture afield with the beagles,
there seems to be a high number of young rabbits or “kits”. The kits are everywhere, no matter what time
of day. But, of course, so are the
predators. I caught a Red-tailed Hawk in
the act just the other morning. When
disturbed, the hawk flew off with the dead kit in its talons.
I know very little about Red-tailed Hawks but one thing I
do know; the Red-tailed Hawk is one of, if not the most productive and
high-volume killing machine in my rabbit cover.
Owls, crows, other kinds of hawks, foxes, skunks, coyotes, raccoons,
opossums, snakes, weasels, cats and dogs, hunters and autos can take credit for
large scale predation. Third on this
list is crows. I don’t believe most people
understand, besides being one of the smartest birds on the planet, just how
deadly the lowly crow can be. Crows can
be seen chasing owls and hawks on a daily basis. I’ve also observed crows making a fuss when a
bald eagle comes around but they seldom harass the eagles.
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| Red-tailed Hawk caught in the act. |
I have mixed
emotions about coyotes. I believe the
coyote gets a bad rap when it comes to predation of small game. Higher on the list should be the common
domesticated house cat and of course feral cats. I see cats in the proving grounds and in the
training grounds regularly, unless there is coyote sign.
A few years back
when training at the beagle club I enjoyed (not so much) a cat chase ending up in
a farmer’s barn a half mile or more away. The farmer reportedly housed at least two dozen cats. It was difficult explaining what 6 beagles
were doing in the farmer’s barn. I wonder
how much small game and song birds 24 cats can eat? A year or so later without a cat chase for a
while I inquired just how many cats the farmer was harboring? The answer was, “zero, coyotes”.
I’ve had people try to tell me that turkey buzzards prey
on rabbits. The turkey vulture is
a scavenger and feeds almost
exclusively on carrion. The
vulture or buzzard does an outstanding job cleaning up the roadways of
Pennsylvania. We see them often soaring
in the hot afternoon thermals.
Reportedly, the vulture has a keen sense of smell. Many times, we have to pick up our pace to
insure the buzzard doesn’t get the wrong idea about us.
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| This turkey vulture is feeding on a road killed cottontail. |
We are at the peak of the tick
season on the Allegheny. Ticks are
supposed to be bad this year because of two mild winters and a wet spring. My hounds don’t seem to be bothered by ticks,
dog ticks or deer ticks, too much. I
keep them treated regularly although I’m a day or two late this month. I know of many people infected with lime
disease. Lime disease can be a terrible
curse.
A while back I lost a beagle to
what the veterinarian diagnosed as lymphoma. Just recently I came across an article in TODAY’S BREEDER, (issue 95) a Purina
Pro Plan publication which stated, “New
tick-borne organisms are discovered every year, and sometimes mimic other
diseases. An unusual case was diagnosed
in 2012 when an 11-year-old male Scottish Terrier thought to have T-cell
lymphoma, based on the pathology and histology reports, turned out to be
infected by a novel tick-borne pathogen, Panola Mountain Ehrlichia sp. Fortunately, antibiotic therapy resolved the
infection and prevented unnecessary treatment with cancer chemotherapy.” Antibiotics is exactly what I was giving poor
Shadow until the vet assured me the problem was not an infection.
I must get to the kennel and get my beagles up to date on
their tick meds.
Please have a great fall and happy hunting.
