THE COMPLETE OUTDOORSMANS HANDBOOK.pdf - Doczine

"It'll take the rabbits a few years to come back, and then I'll start getting them cats again," he continued.The astuteness of his conversation struck me later. I am sure that he never thought of his observations asbeing particularly noteworthy, but they were. He had summarized not only the essence of a predatorpreyrelationship, but also an understanding of the complexity of the snowshoe hare-lynx cycle. Heknew that as snowshoe hare populations increased in their ten-year cycle, the number of lynx would alsoincrease, but when the snowshoe hare cycle crashed to its low point, the lynx population would alsodecline, but one year after the hares. The fact that the cats were thin and that some, the young of thatyear, were somewhat smaller than normal showed that they were undernourished,Observations and deductions such as these can be made by anyone who understands what is happeningaround him. A South Dakota pheasant hunter can get a fairly good idea of the kind of fall pheasantseason he can expect by remembering the severity of the previous winter and the temperatures andrainfall of the spring that followed it. If the winter had had deep snow, pheasants would have survivedonly in the best of covers. This means that the breeding population would be lower than average. If thespring had been wet and cold, the size of hatches and survival of pheasant chicks would be poor. Lowbreeding populations and poor hatches and poor survival of chicks means low populations of pheasantsin the fall.In mid-winter, with little snow, pheasants will survive even in marginal covers. A high breedingpopulation in the spring will result. If the spring is favorable, good hatches and high chick survival rateswill result. A high breeding population, good hatches, and good survival of chicks will mean a bumpercrop of ringnecks in the fall.Every outdoorsman should understand the basic law of nature the principle of carrying capacity. Thetenets of this law can be seen on almost every outing, even in a city park. If you want to see certainspecies of wildlife, you go to places where they are abundant. For example, if you want to see a whitetaileddeer, you go into a young forest with much brush and sapling growth. The deer here have plentyof browse. Mature forests have low carrying capacity for deer, because tender shoots and branches aretoo high for the deer to reach. On the other hand, if you want to see wild turkey, you must go to matureforests because only mature forests bear mast for turkeys to feed on.The main reason why any species of animal is abundant is because the habitat is suitable for its mode oflife. In other words, the habitat has the capacity to support that species - to give it food and shelter. Butthere is more to it than that. The carrying capacity of any habitat is limited. Just as a bridge with awarning sign "Eight-Ton Limit" has a limited carrying capacity, so any given habitat has one as well.For example, nearly every winter many of the northern Great Lakes states report starvation among deer.This is simply the law of carrying capacity in action. If there are too many deer for the habitat tosupport, some of the deer must die. This carrying capacity is not static. In a severe winter of deep snows,the carrying capacity is decreased because the deer herds will confine themselves to sheltered areas.Conversely, in mild winters, deer herds spread out and thereby increase the carrying capacity of the