[NAFEX] Disappointment with resurgent predators

BekeeprTop at aol.com BekeeprTop at aol.com
Fri Feb 16 17:33:59 EST 2007


When I first planted nuts to grow nut trees, in 1982, I went to the extension 
service and asked them which predators went after squirrels.  [This was back 
when each Massachusetts County had an extension service]   The answer was:  
pine martens, fishers, and red-tailed hawks.  The only one we had then was the 
red-tailed, but they didn't seem to make much dent on the squirrels.  The 
fishers had returned here, no doubt:  they've been photographed on 
automatic-photographing trail equipment, and last year I saw a road-killed one driving one 
day, and stopped to look it over since I'd never seen one.   I could see why 
they're sometimes called "fisher-cats", as their appearance is vaguely cat-like, 
but their bodies are much slimmed in the middle making real cats look very 
heavy-bodied by comparison.  But they have lots of black hair and long 
barracuda-like teeth.  Someone who's seen them in motion says they're very fast up in the 
trees, they actually go up in the trees and take the squirrels from there.  
So the big question is, when are these resurgent predators going to start 
making an apparant difference in our everyday lives?  There sure are a lot of 
squirrels...lord knows what the squirrels eat to get by...the squirrels take any 
pecan or hickory before the nut inside can every begin to fill out, so how are 
the squirrels taking advantage of the food offered by the nut tree?   I went 
for a walk in the dead of night the other night, went to a nearby hill for a 
little run, and got to thinking, in 10-years, this will no longer be possible.  I 
will not be able to go running in the woods in 10-years.  The mountain lions 
will have returned by then.  Where the mountain lions are, no bike riding or 
running is advised, fast motion stimulates any type cats to run down the fast 
moving object.  I went to a lecture sponsored by 5 different mountain lion 
watch and conservation organizations.   After an absence of many decades, mountain 
lions have returned to Missouri.  Mountain lions have returned to Missouri 
because their prey, the deer, have returned to Missouri.  In the east, deer 
double each 10 years.   Already, we have had multiple unverified sitings of 
mountain lion less than 10 miles from Boston!  In Missouri, the sitings have been 
verified.  Its just a question of time.  However, the fishers and coyotes here 
have returned in force, and I can't see they've yet changed our environmental 
conditions dramatically.  Do you see any substantial difference?
Charlie Paradise, prob. will be first in Massachusetts to be attacked by 
mountain lion



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