Along the Rim

For several months a camera trap had been along the rim of the Allegheny Plateau. Some of the photographs from that camera trap were in this post. After retrieving those photos and seeing how much wildlife activity there had been on the trail along the rim, I decided to replace that camera trap with one that took videos. The yield from the video camera’s first several weeks justified switching the cameras –

The bear has had an encounter with humans as indicated by the tags in his ears. Perhaps he was a nuisance somewhere and found himself in a trap and relocated.

Unfortunately the southern flying squirrel didn’t stay in the camera’s view very long – maybe next time.

The oaks on the plateau had some acorns this year, but far from a bumper crop. Going into winter those concentrated packets of energy are some of the most important foods for mammals and birds; the bear, deer, squirrels and raccoon were almost certainly seeking whatever acorns they could find.

Gray squirrels are at or near the peak of one of their population cycles, perhaps brought on by an excellent acorn crop in 2017. Now, squirrels will have a difficult time finding enough food to carry them through the winter and the population will probably collapse.

Three Steps Back

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is 123 years old and after all those years the name remains "Pennsylvania Game Commission" even though this “stand alone” agency is responsible for all birds and mammals in the Commonwealth, whether they are hunted of not. By far the vast majority of those species are not hunted, in fact only a tiny minority of mammal and bird species are hunted for sport. 

For years there has been a gentle push to change the agency’s name to “Pennsylvania Wildlife Commission” but the effort has always been stymied by a vocal minority that wants the organization’s emphasis to remain on that small number of wildlife species that are hunted or trapped.

Unfortunately, the majority of the PGC’s funding is derived from the sale of hunting licenses and excise taxes levied on the sale of firearms and ammunition. Those millions of citizens who are interested in wildlife – the photographers and wildlife watchers – have no easy way to fund programs to manage the wildlife in which they're interested. At the same time the number of licensed hunters and trappers in Pennsylvania is on the decline (down from over a million and having dropped by an additional 34,000 between 2009 and 2016) which will put the agency in a serious cash crunch.

For many years the PGC’s law enforcement personnel were called “District Game Protector”, in keeping with the agency’s name and function of providing “game” animals for the hunting public and enforcing the laws and regulations affecting wildlife populations.

Their title was changed to the more suitable and descriptive “Wildlife Conservation Officer” in 1987 and this it remained for 30 years.

Then came new senior management and, on January 1, 2018, a change in title to “Game Warden”. To this observer it seems as if the PGC is digging in its heels and sticking with a declining group of supporters who just want to see and shoot "game". At the same time it seems that the agency is turning its back on all the other folks who are interested in wildlife.

It wasn’t always that way as demonstrated by the editorial and table of contents in the July 1950 issue of the PGC's magazine, Pennsylvania Game News -

 

So the District Game Protectors/Wildlife Conservation Officers/Game Wardens may have a new name but instead of merely taking one step backward for every two steps forward, the PGC is going three steps backward in its thinking. The new aim may be more likely to shoot the agency in its own foot than to walk toward the future.

From the Camera on the Rim

An earlier post had a brief description of the Allegheny Plateau that occupies much of northcentral Pennsylvania and presented photographs of some of the wildlife that utilizes a faint wildlife trail below the rim of the plateau.

The rim of the plateau could be described as an ecotone. An ecotone is the boundary between two or more different habitats: the shore of a lake, the transition from forest to field. In this case the transition is more subtle, from a forest dominated by chestnut oak with an understory of mountain laurel on gently rolling terrain to a forest of black birch and red maple, with a few white pine, oaks and hemlocks mixed in, on a steep slope with no actual understory.

Ecotones provide the “edge effect” often mentioned in popular writings about wildlife. The edges are valuable to, and often attract, a wide variety of wildlife because they offer a range of food and cover throughout the year.

Along the rim of the plateau is a trail that appears to be heavily used by wildlife – a good spot for a camera trap. And so I placed a camera trap aimed along the trail. The gray squirrel population is at the peak of one of its population cycles and the camera’s memory card had an abundance of squirrel photographs –

Because of the plentiful prey in the form of gray squirrels the camera on the rim had photos of predators: eastern coyotes –

And bobcat –

Those weren’t the only species caught by the camera trap, so too were wild turkeys –

White-tailed deer –

And black bear –

Thus it went through late summer and into the fall.