DISCOVERING | Wildlife Habitat Part 1
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- Опубліковано 3 бер 2024
- Episode 75 - What is the state of our wildlife habitat today in the U.P.? What did it used to be? And where are we headed? For insight into these questions, we spoke with wildlife biologist and habitat expert, Jim Hammill.
Thank you once again for this objective coverage of the UP. It is not the wolf alone, changes in habit do make a difference. Also just loved the coverage of logging up here. We do not just knock down everything. Seriously that video should be shown to every person that thinks logging is just clearcutting! Again thank you for a great show!
The paper companies came in cleared the cedar swamps twenty years ago. For ever changed the area for deer. Dried the rest of the swamp up and now when it rains the water just flows down to the ford river. They also took all the white pine and never replanted anything.
Looking forward to this episode 👍🏻
In way the world is now I think we need to save as much older trees as possible n tell the dnr to stop cutting down the hemlock.
We have a 40 in Iron county, the property is as good as it gets for whitetails, if the same property was in central or southern Michigan, it would be loaded with deer, it used to be a good deer hunting area, the wolves have devastated the deer population, the DNR childishly blames property owners and the public for the DNR s failed management, the deer hunting is done in the upper peninsula
Politicians in Lansing that don’t even eat meat need to move to China. Common sense is gone.
Some of our friends had property up in the irons... They said the same thing... Decades ago the deer hunting was great.. But when the wolves came back... That was the end.. They sold their property up there.... Such a pity too, because it's so beautiful up there.
I agree have the same problem in Northern Wisconsin Dnr don’t care but they like to blame others but in time these wolves 🐺 will go ware the food is and the berry pickers will have to deal with it .😊
Peace and Forever Blessings to ALL and awesome video and thank you for giving us this very valuable information on our well-being of our outdoors.
Need a Wolf season! Politicians aren’t outdoorsmen
I remain addicted. Thank YOU~
Was traveling thru the Yoop last weekend and we talked about timber harvest. We wondered if the timber operations up north have slowed production. Is the habitat going away because they aren’t renewing timber? Obviously thermal cover is extremely important. But the food side of it is quite critical as well.
Good questions! I feel timber production is still going strong but probably not what it used to be decades ago. What I gather from Jim Hammill is the loss of diversity in the forests is what is causing the habitat loss. And talking to other people, great deer wintering areas have been clear cut in some areas, and only profitable timber is being renewed.
how does the diversity go away?, is it that those resources have been depleted by the game? or the lack of timber harvest no longer providing renewed diversity. As a society we are using less and less paper I would think because of technology so private paper mills having reduced production? It seems the State of MI could do more timber harvest up there, and from revenues from those harvest's , replant diversified browse and cover? I had heard the yarding areas had suffered as well. It's really unfortunate, but feel it's going to take a long time to recover. It's gone on too long. Not even mentioning what wolves have done and other predators. @@discovertheup
Timber people ruined my 30 year old campsite, probably time to move anyways.
Thanks for letting everyone know.
I've hunting deer in northeast Wisconsin since the 1950's. Initially the habitat was excellent because it had been cut and burnt in the late 1800's. It was a mix of species and there was a lot of edge that provided a variety of tree species of a variety of ages. Since then, the habitat quality and quantity has greatly declined. It has matured too much to provide good deer habitat. Edge has largely disappeared. And we had large deer populations in the 1960s primarily that destroyed the habitat in what was at one time prime wintering habitat. And along with the decline in deer numbers there has been a dramatic decline in the grouse population. The forest we have now is too mature and to monotypic to support a deer population that is numerous enough to provide what I consider good deer hunting.
Wolves are a nuisance but I think if we had decent habitat deer hunting would still be satisfactory. But now, deer populations are limited to areas where there is good habitat. What I'm seeing is the wolves will focus on areas where population are locally, because of high quality habitat, most dense. And will in fact "drive" deer from one patch of decent habitat to another.
One of the key things we're missing here in regard to providing decent habitat is fire. Smokey the bear has not done those of us who like to hunt deer and grouse a favor. Just the opposite.
And although for years I've been taught that popple and popple clear cuts are very favorable as deer habitat I don't think that's true. What we've ended up with are huge blocks of monotypic popple stands that provide little habitat. Again, deer thrive on diversity including shrubs and grasses.
AND, I don't think loggers are necessarily a deer or grouse hunters friend. In some cases they do a lot of good. But they're interested in one thing. Money. I f they could manage forests like farmers manage corn that's exactly what they would do. If they had their way in our part of the state all we'd see would be red pine plantations from east to west and north to south. I've yet to see a forester who didn't have a dollar sign tattooed on both the inside and outside of their foreheads.
Containing the wolf population is the number 1 biggest habitat improvement we could do among other predators to a smaller degree. If all the deer get eaten and fawn recruitment remains dismal, it doesn't matter how many of whatever tree is planted or not cut. Deer could bed in the thickest of cover we could create, the wolf's nose will not fail them. Habitat improvement only matters if there's deer around in the first place to use it.
Minimum wolf count of 631 wolves consuming 18930 deer a year is not sustainable. Plus whatever coyotes, bears and the cats take.
Here again, the good lord made trees for us to use-wisely. So many forested tracts in the upper midwest need disturbance. I tried for 25 yrs to convince the public to allow IL DNR to harvest timber on state lands to no avail. Now, we have oak wilt, poor understory, poor regeneration of native shrubs, and desirable flora, and so on. The hunting success has followed the same track-sad.
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