Help! Opossum in Nesting Box!

[OhZark Biddies]

That study was done on Cape Cod. What a ridiculous place to do a study on coyotes. No one shoots them there.
.

That's actually exactly why it makes for a good place to do the study... it's a more controlled environment with no chicken keepers like you and I blasting away the subjects of the study!

The biologist can then trap and remove individuals and study the impact... without interference to the pack from other factors.

Also it was likely not a place that was saturated in coyotes so the expansion and population growth factors could be studied with out other packs interfering.

But your point on activism, is likely valid... it just often comes later, when the data and findings get cherry picked and misrepresented by omitting parts, etc.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

... they found that guineas did not eat any more ticks than chickens ...

You know, that's interesting. Last year I didn't get a single tick on me where my girls free range. But just beyond their range, at the property line, for a period of time I would get a tick on me every single time I got out of the car to open/close the gate. And I was very careful not to touch any weeds or plants.

 

[Skipper81]

Far as I know dogs breed every time the female goes into heat which is four times a year for my dog

 

[Trux]

We can speculate, we all have our opinions. Fact of the matter is, we are all responsible for keeping our flocks safe. I am very confident with my coop and run being able to keep out any predators we deal with where I am. By no means is it bear proof, or mountain lion proof but then I don't have to deal with those animals. If your confident in your coop and run, and are being honest with yourself about it, that's great! If you have your doubts in your own mind about it, don't wait for a predator to confirm it for you, act on those doubts and make it better!
As for the ecosystem, there are checks and balances that keep it on an even keel. Remove a predator and other not so wonderful pests population increases, like rats and mice, ticks and various bugs. So keep that in mind when you decide to take out an animal you could keep away from your flock by making sure your coop and run are secure

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

That's actually exactly why it makes for a good place to do the study... it's a more controlled environment with no chicken keepers like you and I blasting away the subjects of the study!

The biologist can then trap and remove individuals and study the impact... without interference to the pack from other factors.

Also it was likely not a place that was saturated in coyotes so the expansion and population growth factors could be studied with out other packs interfering.

IMO it would make for a very skewed study. Animals are going to act differently in different environments. Cape Cod is not what I would call a natural environment for coyotes; it is very developed with little pockets of woods here and there, and is very narrow with water on all sides, which would affect their ranging options.

 

[Yuki]

I've had possoum in coop to before almost killed one of my hens but she is good now but possoum not so much

 

[OhZark Biddies]

IMO it would make for a very skewed study.....

I get what you're saying, but maybe think of it this way....it's only skewed if we say "this study had these findings... and now we must apply those findings to all other situations and environments" ... that doesn't work... and this is your point ...that we can't do that... and I agree we can not do that.

The study itself is likely about as good as you can do for a controlled environment, and it tells of some of the observations made in that setting...

I think this is where the information is getting taken out of context, and repeated incompletely...people talk about the 20x population expansion as if that happens all the time, every time an alpha is removed from a pack.

This might happen very occasionally in some areas, and it likely happened a great deal as the coyote range expanded eastward, but it's not that there are multiple litters born per year, it is that when the alpha dies or is killed for example, the 3 or 4 beta females might disperse and start their own packs and have their own litters, resulting in the 20x population increase

But again this is highly dependent on the presence (or lack ) of other packs in surrounding areas... (as I mentioned in post 15)

Basically when coyotes were expanding eastward, the removal of the alphas probably almost always resulted in betas forming their own packs in surrounding areas that were no longer occupied by wolves that had been there historically, and didn't yet contain other coyotes...

Now that coyotes have expanded to pretty much everywhere, this often repeated idea of the 20x growth likely doesn't happen or at least not that often, because of the surrounding packs... but it likely does still happen from time to time when population dynamics are just right.

The cape cod study was just an environment that allowed biologist to observe this in action by manipulating things to make the population dynamics just right. But that you and I would never have that in our area, does not mean that the observations are null, or the study was skewed.

Hope that helps... it's clear to me how this works and doesn't work, and how it is so easily and often misstated and misunderstood, but I'm not sure if I'm able to explain it clearly.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

But that you and I would never have that in our area, does not mean that the observations are null, or the study was skewed.

Well that's true. I didn't mean to imply that it's an invalid study, but meant applying that study universally would (IMO) skew conclusions.

 

[Skipper81]

Glad you guys got it figured out

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Glad you guys got it figured out

I don't want to speak for Junebug... but I'm glad you were rootin' for us