# Rewilding....any thoughts?



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 12, 2016)

I have been reading a lot about rewilding in both the US and Europe.  This is basically where barren land is allowed to return to its natural state along with a return of all its wildlife to include the apex predators, which in the US would be cougars, wolves, lynx in areas, martins, fishers...etc.  along with all the large ungulates such as elk (which at one time lived just about everywhere in the US with the possible exception of Florida), moose, woodland caribou and woodland bison.  It is taking place basically on its own in New England with there now being over 80% of its forest returned, this is to pre-European settlement times.  That is amazing if you ask me.  With this moose have returned to New England and the Adirondacks.  There have been a couple of stray wolves killed also.   Dams have been removed from many rivers and immediately herring, shad, Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, eels, stripped bass, etc....are returning.  Bears which years ago were unheard of, are as common as coons are here.  

In Europe, the wisent (European bison) has returned to many parts of central and eastern Europe.  The Eurasian Brown bear can be found in most of continental Europe now along with the lynx and wolf.  Birds and forest are benefiting from these new arrivals...in Spain and Portugal now wolves and lynx are seen regularly....the ibex is returning to the mountains....there are parts of central Europe as wild as anywhere in North America now.  

Unfortunately we have a generation of woodsmen who have never heard of Aldo Leopold let alone have read his works....and that is a shame, because without him, it is doubtful we would have the game we have now.  Had more outdoorsmen read his works or were at least familiar with his works, they would be familiar with the concept of trophic cascade and the need of apex predators.  Sadly todays hunters are spoiled.  When I started deer hunting around 45 years ago it was a different world in South West GA.  Counties now known as sure thing deer locations....did not have deer, let alone deer seasons...same with turkeys.  It was my third year of sitting in a stand, which was a 2x4 nailed between two limbs, before I even saw a deer and it was a doe, and I was hunting in Calhoun Co. which is over run with deer now.  Now, if a deer hunter doesn't see plenty of 120 or plus bucks a season the season was no good.  They want to blame the coyotes, bears, too many doe days, too many florida hunters, etc....they are spoiled. To my mind, sitting in a tower stand over a food plot or feeder now and selecting the deer you want to take home isn't hunting at its purest sense.  Our woods are out of balance....we have too many deer regardless of what most people think. If you can see a browse line in the woods, people, there are way too many deer.  Ironically, if panthers were here....deer would pattern differently, they would move more during the day, (panthers hunt at night)  and their bedding habits would change. Hunting would be more of a challenge, but a good challenge, to know you are competing with a much better hunter.  I could go on and on about this and a holistic approach to wildlife management....but I want to throw this out there and get others thoughts.....


----------



## swamp hunter (Oct 13, 2016)

Deer hunting in todays environment has become easy.
If you really had to work for it there would be a lot less hunters.
I well remember the first time I went to lower Georgia and saw 8 deer in one morning...I was ecstatic. 
That was like a half seasons worth..in one group...WOW.
I was a kid in a candy store again. Place is crawling with them..!
As far a Rattlesnakes , most folks don't really understand the woods anymore. They ride around on their 4 wheelers , sit on food plots , or Corn up an area and sit there. No real respect for Nature because they don't know it. If it's a threat..kill it.
Ya'll will most likely never get Panthers and Wolves up in your woods because they will be shot on sight by folks that get their woods knowledge from Mike Waddell and Tiffany...Sad..


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 13, 2016)

swamp hunter said:


> Deer hunting in todays environment has become easy.
> If you really had to work for it there would be a lot less hunters.
> I well remember the first time I went to lower Georgia and saw 8 deer in one morning...I was ecstatic.
> That was like a half seasons worth..in one group...WOW.
> ...


I have always been an advocate for it is not how many you harvest, it is about how you harvest your game.  Most of my fondest moments hunting was not when I harvested an animal....it was me trying to figure the animals out where I was hunting.  I imagine we will get panthers sooner or later, if not from Florida, they will get here from out west or maybe from up north.  There is still a chance that sooner or later the Feds will implement the Florida Panther Recovery Plan.  If they ever do that...we will have panthers all over GA within 10 or so years, well at least young male panthers.  Bear are beginning to show up in places that haven't had bear since the 19th Century.


----------



## Nicodemus (Oct 14, 2016)

Excellent thread, Jay. You know my thoughts on this subject. 

Maybe it will open some eyes.


----------



## JSnake (Oct 14, 2016)

Reading Sand County opened my eyes to this. I recommend it to everyone regardless of their interest in the outdoors.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 16, 2016)

South eastern Arizona and south western New Mexico are interesting areas for potential rewilding.  There have been a couple of male Jaguars along with a number of Ocelots recorded there recently.  I read an article where one trail cam recorded on jaguar, three ocelots, a couple of pumas and a bobcat....to me that is extremely interesting.  From what I can tell Jaguars lived in the southwest from California to Western Louisiana and as far north as the Grand Canyon during historic times, with a female being killed at the Grand Canyon in the early 60s.  There has also been a successful reintroduction of the Mexican Wolf in that area too.  Elk are doing good in the mountains of that area, so are mule deer and whitetail along with pronghorns and bighorn sheep.  Throw in the javelin/peccary and the bison in parts of that area.....it would be a predators paradise.  I know cattlemen would be worried, but I just returned from Arizona a few weeks ago....you can tell the areas grazed as opposed to those not.  I know cattle ranching is historic in that area, but that area is not really conducive to the practice.  I think they need over 100 acres per cow unit as opposed to 1 or 2 in the southeast, that is not an effective use of the land.  Interestingly enough, a lot of the ranch land is BLM land already owned by the citizens of the US as opposed to the ranchers, so the land is there.  The total is 12.2 million acres owned by the government and managed by the BLM, this is not counting land utilized in Parks,  or other government owned operations.  That is a lot of land.  To date there hasn't been any female jaguars seen...the main population is over 100 miles south in a jaguar sanctuary in the Mexican state of Sonora, but if just one or two females were to be released.....

Out west, we have a lot of government owned land, land owned by you and me, that is being horribly used, cattle in this environment really lay waste to the land, it is not the best use for the land, plus the stocking rate is horribly low and the only way one could break even is to use the BLM land.  In Georgia or Florida or anywhere else in the south east you can stock as many cows on 100 acres whereas out west you would need thousands of acres for the same number of cow units.  I am no huge fan of Ted Turner, but he has the right idea when it comes to this particular issue and at least he is putting his money where his mouth is....and doing something.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 16, 2016)

One of the pictures was taken on open range, and one was not....


----------



## swamp hunter (Oct 16, 2016)

Thanks for posting the pictures.
As much as I am against the Feds..at least the land is ours to use.
You give it to the States and it's SOLD to the highest Bidder.
I've lived out West..It's Grand Country. Let's keep it open....


----------



## carver (Oct 16, 2016)

Owning land in the mountains of North Georgia I would love to see elk and woods buffalo in their natural habitat.Fannin county has lots of national forest land (fact is 3/4 of the county is national forest) it would be a great boost to the economy as it has in the Great Smoky Mountain national park.I'm all for it!


----------



## Nicodemus (Oct 16, 2016)

The buffalo that was in this part of the country was the plains bison. The wood bison was and is native to Western Canada and Alaska. It was never down in the plains states nor the east or the south. Common misconception. If you ever see the two subspecies side by side you can see distinct differences. The wood bison resembles a wisent with a larger hump more so than a plains bison.

A really good book to read is The Long Hunt, by Ted Franklin Belue. It covers the history of the buffalo in the east.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 16, 2016)

carver said:


> Owning land in the mountains of North Georgia I would love to see elk and woods buffalo in their natural habitat.Fannin county has lots of national forest land (fact is 3/4 of the county is national forest) it would be a great boost to the economy as it has in the Great Smoky Mountain national park.I'm all for it!



How would you feel about panthers being back in the mountains, in numbers where they would show up on trail cams?  There has been huge advances lately with creating a blight resistant American Chestnut...if they do succeed and we start getting the Chestnut back in North GA there will be more deer than you can shake a stick at and panthers will be needed.  Some of these altered  Chestnuts are already being planted on reclaimed strip coal mines in West Virginia and Kentucky. There are a few areas of research, one involves back breeding with Chinese Chestnuts, another involves one blight resistant gene from wheat and one involves a hypovirus that attacks the blight.  When you get the prey back...you have to have the predators, they serve a purpose and the apex predators just being there makes the woods a little wilder.


----------



## carver (Oct 17, 2016)

redneck_billcollector said:


> How would you feel about panthers being back in the mountains, in numbers where they would show up on trail cams?  There has been huge advances lately with creating a blight resistant American Chestnut...if they do succeed and we start getting the Chestnut back in North GA there will be more deer than you can shake a stick at and panthers will be needed.  Some of these altered  Chestnuts are already being planted on reclaimed strip coal mines in West Virginia and Kentucky. There are a few areas of research, one involves back breeding with Chinese Chestnuts, another involves one blight resistant gene from wheat and one involves a hypovirus that attacks the blight.  When you get the prey back...you have to have the predators, they serve a purpose and the apex predators just being there makes the woods a little wilder.


I personally have no problem with any animal that was here before I was,I go out west at least once a year,and hike where the wild things live,i enjoy the thought that i'm not at the top of the food chain,and have to be on my "A" game while there so I don't get eaten.
My cabin backs up to the national forest and I hunt there,I know the dangers of the black bear, snakes,etc,and accept it.


----------



## carver (Oct 17, 2016)

Nicodemus said:


> The buffalo that was in this part of the country was the plains bison. The wood bison was and is native to Western Canada and Alaska. It was never down in the plains states nor the east or the south. Common misconception. If you ever see the two subspecies side by side you can see distinct differences. The wood bison resembles a wisent with a larger hump more so than a plains bison.
> 
> A really good book to read is The Long Hunt, by Ted Franklin Belue. It covers the history of the buffalo in the east.


Thanks Nic.,I like a good read


----------



## NCHillbilly (Oct 17, 2016)

Good thread! I feel pretty much the same way. I have everything Aldo ever wrote on my bookshelf, and there is very little of it that I don't agree with 100%. There are too many people out there now who claim to love nature, but they want to pick and choose amongst it, and are afraid of or despise half the stuff out there. I would have loved to have seen this place a few hundred years ago as John Lawson got to see it, or France about 15,000 BC.


----------



## Nicodemus (Oct 17, 2016)

If you folks haven`t had the honor to meet the ol` Redneck Billcollector, and set around a fire and have a deepwoods discussion with him, you are missing out on some conversations that date back hundreds of years. To share a fire with him and the Chehawknapper is a step back in time and mighty fine lesson in past history and woodsmanship. 

Jay and Ben, Here`s to you.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 17, 2016)

I appreciate that Nic, I have always enjoyed my conversations with you and I always learn a goodly bit from you.  As a matter of fact, the book you mentioned in this thread was just added to my collection and I started reading it tonight, so far a rather interesting read.  Those were some interesting pictures you posted with Kayla and the serpents....I bet you a nickel to a dollar if you were to ask for an i.d. on the one in the tree you would get 20 cottonmouth calls for every correct one. On a side note, I have a mess of new to me bamboo fly rods, we need to hit the river soon....


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 17, 2016)

NCHillbilly said:


> Good thread! I feel pretty much the same way. I have everything Aldo ever wrote on my bookshelf, and there is very little of it that I don't agree with 100%. There are too many people out there now who claim to love nature, but they want to pick and choose amongst it, and are afraid of or despise half the stuff out there. I would have loved to have seen this place a few hundred years ago as John Lawson got to see it, or France about 15,000 BC.



To me it is the fear that really confuses me.  It is more like excitement.  I have wandered the bush in Alaska stumbling upon bear and rather big moose, which are more dangerous than bears, I have explored jungled areas in central America....it is the fact that I could be possibly the object of a hunter that actually makes it exciting.  I see "outdoors men" that will kill every snake they see, say if they see a panther they will shoot it, etc...etc...  I have harvested my share of predators in my life, I trapped for my livelihood back in the day, but I have never, not once, in my life been happy to kill anything. I am always a little saddened, but I think that is needed....a respect so to speak, for all animals in the woods and fields.  Every time I step out in my yard, I know I am squatting on the cottonmouth's home, the copperhead's home, the canebrake's home and the alligator's home. I chose to live with them, I have paid plenty of dollars when one of my dogs get snake bit, but I do not blame the snake.  He is just protecting himself.  I know bird hunters that want to shoot hawks...I remind them, but for the hawk, the quail would not hold for a point.   If I had a nickel for every cottonmouth, copperhead and canebrake I have caught in my yard to move to the woods next to my house, I would have a bag full of nickels.....but that is neither here nor there.  I love the fact that I get to see them...watch them....I have a love affair with nature...some think it is unnatural...but I can't help it, since as far back as I can remember, the wild spaces always called my name.  The mountains on the horizon, the swamps just down the dirt road or around the next river bend.....the piney woods with all their wild flowers, they all hold a special place in my heart.  I can say this....the wild spaces I truly love, are not as wild as they should be without the apex predators that should be there.  I want bears, panthers, wolves...I want to walk their paths...I have been in plenty of areas where the apex predators were there...and it adds that extra spice to the place, it makes the area that much more attractive to me.  I grew up wading waters that were void of alligators, now, they are everywhere and it makes wading those places that much more extra.  I am in my mid-50s and I know how much more the river swamps mean to me now with alligators in them, it actually adds to my exploration.  A few weeks ago I got to go looking for mountain lions, just to see what I could find, I was in Arizona and I did find some tracks, I saw some desert bighorns, some mule deer....my next trip to Arizona I am going to go the Sky Mountains and see if I can't cut el Jefe's tracks(he is the young jaguar that has taken up residence not far from Tucson ) now to catch a glimpse of him, I could die a truly happy man. I have seen Jaguar sign in the Yucatan and in Belize, but I have never seen one in the wild.....


----------



## Nicodemus (Oct 18, 2016)

redneck_billcollector said:


> I appreciate that Nic, I have always enjoyed my conversations with you and I always learn a goodly bit from you.  As a matter of fact, the book you mentioned in this thread was just added to my collection and I started reading it tonight, so far a rather interesting read.  Those were some interesting pictures you posted with Kayla and the serpents....I bet you a nickel to a dollar if you were to ask for an i.d. on the one in the tree you would get 20 cottonmouth calls for every correct one. On a side note, I have a mess of new to me bamboo fly rods, we need to hit the river soon....





Yep! This one. It was right photogenic.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 19, 2016)

Nic, I am about through with the Belue book, one thing that I have seen a lot of in this book is reports of panthers attacking full grown bison.  I haven't heard of that before.  In seeing the numbers of deer that were harvested for the hide trade, coupled with the preference for summer hides, I guess the deer were getting few and far between.  I also found the attitudes of the people back then rather depressing, not just the white people either, it seemed the natives had almost the same disregard for the animals they relied on at times.  I never knew that Daniel Boone was a budding conservationist, I found "Boone's law" rather interesting. It is hard to envision herds of bison roaming the GA coast near St. Simon's Island, I wonder how the flatwoods looked with them in the area.  It was also interesting to realize how fast the bison populated areas east of the Mississippi when they got across.  The devastation that followed in the wake of Desoto apparently was a boon for wildlife.


----------



## Gary Mercer (Oct 19, 2016)

Nice snake, Nic. 
I'll bite, what is it?
Saw a lot of snakes in Nam, but nothing like that.
Don't know as I have run up on one from that direction in GA or SC either.
So I'll play the fool, and let you educate this old Geezer
Gary
PS.  Still waiting for that campfire talk.


----------



## rayjay (Oct 19, 2016)

I'm coming to this thread late but a few years back I read a book about the northeast from the time of the early settlers and it said that there was a lot of cleared and farmed land. Then when the soil got used up the people would move west and start over and the old farm would start to get over grown. 

You had 'fellers' and 'clearers'. The fellers could cut down the trees and the clearers [ may have wrong word for what they were called back then ] would clean out the land. There was lots of cleared land left over from Indians that had perished from European diseases.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 19, 2016)

Gary Mercer said:


> Nice snake, Nic.
> I'll bite, what is it?
> Saw a lot of snakes in Nam, but nothing like that.
> Don't know as I have run up on one from that direction in GA or SC either.
> ...



Since Nic ain't answered I will and hope I don't step on his toes.  That is a banded water snake, there are probably more of them killed by folks thinking they are cottonmouths than there are cottonmouths killed.  These snakes, and other members of the water snake clan, are responsible for all the stories of moccasins chasing people, these snakes along with most other water snakes are much more aggressive than cottonmouths. I am over half way to the century mark and grew up in South GA swamps, hunting, trapping, fishing, etc...and have seen hundreds of water snakes in trees, I have never seen a cottonmouth in one, though I have seen them on logs poking out of the water sunning themselves.  I know cottonmouths real well, I have had more than my share as pets...


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 19, 2016)

I have a question that pertains to this thread for all people on this forum from Tennessee or who spend a lot of time up there.  Back in 2002 or there abouts there were 40 some odd fisher (or fisher cats if you prefer) released in the eastern part of the state.  For about a year or so you can find information on the program, and then it just stops.  Does anyone have an idea how they fared?  I know they are doing good in West Virginia and Maryland so I imagine they would do alright in Tennessee, has anyone seen any? I also understand that Tennessee now has an elk season in the same region where the fisher were released.  It seems that slowly but surely the elk are establishing themselves with the help of the RMEF and State Game Agencies in places where they haven't been in at least a century if not more....


----------



## Gary Mercer (Oct 20, 2016)

Tenn releasing Fisher Cats into the wild, and the folks in NH, Conn, and VT seem to have public warnings out about them.
I guess they are not good in the neighborhood.  Seem to like the taste of cats and small dogs.
Sometimes, I wonder......


----------



## Nicodemus (Oct 20, 2016)

Jay, step in anytime, your advice is always welcome. That little rascal wasn`t much more than 2 feet long. It let us ease to boat up close so my camera wasn`t but maybe a 18 inches from it. Now that I think back, I don`t ever recall seeing a cottonmouth up in a tree either.

Mister Gary, it would be a pleasure to set around a fire with you and listen to you tell stories of growing up. The fact that you knew Mr. Babcock would make it even better.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 20, 2016)

Gary Mercer said:


> Tenn releasing Fisher Cats into the wild, and the folks in NH, Conn, and VT seem to have public warnings out about them.
> I guess they are not good in the neighborhood.  Seem to like the taste of cats and small dogs.
> Sometimes, I wonder......



There primary food is porcupines and snowshoe hares...which the southern end of there range has very little, if any of.  My understanding that the studies of the West Virginia fisher had them eating up to 50% road killed deer, with coon and possums coming in 2d and 3d.  I do not know if they were ever extirpated from NH and VT, I know they have largely come back to Conn. on their own.  As for a taste for cats....good for them. Cats roaming around cause more problems to wildlife than just about anything else.  As for dogs, I would imagine, from what I have seen, that the dogs go after the fisher and apparently end up on the loosing side.  Fisher are a big mustelid and can be rather tough, like any other mustelid. I personally am glad they released them in the wild.  The wild is meant for wild animals, not cats and dogs.  I hear people complain about wild animals killing their dogs and cats, and it makes me wonder.  If you choose to move to where wild animals roam and live, why would you leave your dogs and cats running loose to come into contact with said animals?  My dogs get snake bit in my yard, I have three dogs and all three have been bit at one time or other.  I try to make sure I catch up every venomous snake I see and move them to the woods next to me.  Hopefully they won't come back....but I choose to live in their home, so I try to respect them and take what precautions I can.  I am an outdoorsman who likes to be part of nature, I have no desire to conquer nature.


----------



## NCHillbilly (Oct 20, 2016)

Apparently, fishers were native to the higher elevations in the Smokies before they were wiped out by the industrial logging of the high-elevation spruce -fir forests back at the turn of the century. The National Park Service has kicked around the idea of restocking fishers in the GSMNP for years.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 20, 2016)

NCHillbilly said:


> Apparently, fishers were native to the higher elevations in the Smokies before they were wiped out by the industrial logging of the high-elevation spruce -fir forests back at the turn of the century. The National Park Service has kicked around the idea of restocking fishers in the GSMNP for years.



They are worried about predation on the Northern Flying Squirrel from what I can see.  They have not put them in the Park as of yet, at least from what I can see.  If they ever did get established in the Smokies I imagine it would be a boon for trappers in the area.  Fisher have some rather good fur and there is normally a demand for it.


----------



## carver (Oct 20, 2016)

redneck_billcollector said:


> There primary food is porcupines and snowshoe hares...which the southern end of there range has very little, if any of.  My understanding that the studies of the West Virginia fisher had them eating up to 50% road killed deer, with coon and possums coming in 2d and 3d.  I do not know if they were ever extirpated from NH and VT, I know they have largely come back to Conn. on their own.  As for a taste for cats....good for them. Cats roaming around cause more problems to wildlife than just about anything else.  As for dogs, I would imagine, from what I have seen, that the dogs go after the fisher and apparently end up on the loosing side.  Fisher are a big mustelid and can be rather tough, like any other mustelid. I personally am glad they released them in the wild.  The wild is meant for wild animals, not cats and dogs.  I hear people complain about wild animals killing their dogs and cats, and it makes me wonder.  If you choose to move to where wild animals roam and live, why would you leave your dogs and cats running loose to come into contact with said animals?  My dogs get snake bit in my yard, I have three dogs and all three have been bit at one time or other.  I try to make sure I catch up every venomous snake I see and move them to the woods next to me.  Hopefully they won't come back....but I choose to live in their home, so I try to respect them and take what precautions I can.  I am an outdoorsman who likes to be part of nature, I have no desire to conquer nature.


Cat are killers for sure
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/6GrFW...e-rehab-center-confirms-that-cats-are-killers


----------



## redneck_billcollector (Oct 21, 2016)

There is a good bit of information about Alladale Wilderness Reserve in Scotland.  Apparently it was purchased by a very wealthy Englishman, Paul Lister in 2003.  He is attempting to bring back apex predators such as wolves, brown bears and lynx to his lands.  Needless to say, he is meeting with some rather stiff opposition with regards to this.  Apparently in Scotland you have issues with closing your wildlands off to the public by fencing.  Something about open access hiking.  He has done some interesting things with the land since he has acquired it though.  Planted thousands of trees, if I am not mistaken he has also acquired some Eurasian Beavers and wild boar.  The red deer and roe deer are apparently getting over populated hence his desire for apex predators. He also wants to bring back the Eurasian Elk...or what we call the Moose.  If interested in what is going on over there, just google "rewilding Scotland" or "rewilding Britain".


----------

