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Its not hunting pressure thats killed their numbers, at least not here in durham region. Groundhogs were everywhere even in town, they were on every patch cut grass, even along the highway. Theres was far more hunting pressure here 30+ years ago. Now hunting is non-existant anywhere even close to town. What i do see now almost every evening is coyotes crossing the field across from my house, no ground hogs at all......
Coyotes
On our farm the coyotes have wiped them out.
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I grew up in Courtice back in the late 70's, back when it was totally rural farmland. My groundhog fields were at the south end of Courtice Road, beside Dom's Auto wreckers and Darlington prov. Park. 1977 - 1980 - any 100acre hayfield would have at least 20 pigs in it. We stalk and shoot them with our Cooey .22's. Lots of grouse, Cottontail, European Hare, and foxes were everywhere. You could walk the railway line with a 177 pellet gun and shoot 6 cottontail in under an hour. I spent my entire childhood in the "bush" and did not see my first coyote until 1981. I literally got to see them arrive on the landscape. Within 5-7 years of their arrival - 90% decline in groundhogs, red fox almost vanished, grouse, cottontail, squirrels, European hare. It was literally like the click of a light switch. I even noticed a drastic decline in meadow vole numbers when we'd hay. No drastic changes in landuse, just the arrival of the dirty ole coyote.
I'm going to throw in with the guys who say Coyote. I started hunting in the late 60's, never saw a yote till maybe 20 years ago at the most. Now I see them almost every time I'm in the bush.
I'll vote coyotes as well. They run our street almost nightly now. I'm in the west end of Peterborough within sight of the hospital. Lots of lost pet signs in the neighbourhood. They've eaten all of the smaller animals outside of town so they've moved to where the food is, and they don't appear to be too uncomfortable on city streets.
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That's the neighborhood I grew up in. All the farmland we used to shoot GHogs in is mostly gone,now. We hunted the farm fields south of Parkhill Rd. and west of Wallis Dr./Merino Rd. The other area was through the old Valleyview Public School to the tracks and fields to the north. Geez,now,I feel really old.Quote:
Originally Posted by GW11
Not old... just seasoned, haha!Quote:
Originally Posted by trimmer21
I'm a little south of Merino, just west of Wallis. The hospital has recently warned their employees against using the walking path between Wallis and the hospital parking lot because it's a frequent coyote runway. We seem to be on their main travel path between Kawartha Golf and Country Club and the green space near the hospital.
One of the places I still see a few groundhogs is just off the Parkway, but the coyotes have started to figure out how to get them there as well.
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Coyotes, are a big factor, but also farming practices have changed.Quote:
Originally Posted by sabmgb
We no longer see the large pasture fields or hay fields like we used to, now those fields are used to grow corn, soy beans and some mixed grain , these fields are constantly worked which does no allow groundhogs to establish their burrows like we used to see them.
Theres lots of grass, hay fields around me and not a single groundhog to be found.Quote:
Originally Posted by jaycee
Same here north of Kingston. The hay fields that held hogs 30 years ago are still hay fields but have about zero groundhogs anymore, and this has been for close to 20 years now. No poisons, no deep tilling, no heavy hunting by firearms, just a lot of yotes in the area. The only small population of hogs I know of is in town inside security fences of factories/plants that the yotes can not access easily.
John