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Landscaping for wildlife:
Miners used to carry canaries down
into the coal mines to warn of impending disasters. A land with a full
complement of turkeys and turtles, chickadees and bluebirds, bunnies and
Bambies is a fair land indeed.
This page is maintained by Boyd Wiltse. He has many links to other pages.
Focus is on the management of Whitetail deer, particularly for "Trophy"
animals. One of his best links disappeared. That link was to a hunting
club that made a few, simple changes to its bylaws. All bucks that
were shot on property had to be mounted ($400 cost) and displayed in the
lodge for one year. People who did not comply with this rule lost their
deer hunting privilege. It became amazingly easy to pass up a shots at
a young bucks when pulling the trigger cost $400 and a dose of
public humiliation..
Mid-Michigan Chapter of Quality Deer
Management
This page is maintained by "With the Grain". He describes
his interest in turtles as "a hobby gone horribly wrong." To
my way of thinking, terrestrial turtles are like a page of long division.
Seeing a good population of turtles confirms that you achieve a harmonious
balance. Not seeing turtles indicates shortcomings in concept or execution.
Turtles live a long time and do not have many young per year, so damage
accumulates quickly and heals slowly.
Box turtles. A classic "canary
in the coal mine"
I am deeply indebted to Marvin Harris for providing the food-work=life
formula. My thought models continue to evolve. Something that seem very
complicated when viewed from one perspective will suddenly become ordered
and predictable when viewed along a different axis. That is what happened
to "landscaping for wildlife" with the food-work = life formula.
Narrative on how my LFW thinking
evolved
The other bookend to the food-work=life formula is predation. Predation
in a pristine wilderness tends to self regulate. Southern Michigan is
a mosaic of urban, suburban and rural....definitely not pristine wilderness.
A class of predators described as "subsidized" predator dominate
the wildlife dynamics in this type of habitat. We call them varmints.
Varmints
What can you do about varmints? You can trap them. One of the allures
of trapping is that you must REALLY understand your quarry. A gun hunter
needs to get within 100 yards. A bow or camera hunter within 30 yards.
A trapper must get the animal to step into the trap or snare. That requires
a deep understanding of the animal and a high degree of woodcraft.
Otter Creek trapping supply.
(Also see varmints)
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