Live Animal Relocation to USA

[John Wasmuth]

Those who do not live with fire ants have no idea what a biblical plague they can be in the South. In Texas, it is almost impossible to lay a game bag with a couple of doves in it on the ground or next to fence post. Red ants will swarm it like a scene from The Naked Jungle (Charlton Heston 1954). Fledglings have little chance.

No truer words have ever been written…..,

 

[Tally-Ho HUNTING SAFARIS]

Mmmm....Stuart I could bring up the various lechwe species...zambian sable...matetsi sable...East African Cape buffalo....fallow deer ..other deer species...tigers....etc etc etc that are available for hunting in SA ....not exactlyin their home range...but I won't mention it....

I agree
And still my comment remains true to me and my own ideals and thoughts

 

[John Wasmuth]

Every third weekend of the month you can go here and bid to your hearts content. Just about any exotic animal you can imagine.

Home | razlivestock

www.razlivestock.com

 

[spike.t]

I agree
And still my comment remains true to me and my own ideals and thoughts

 

[RR 314]

I would think that there would be a risk starting another "invasive specie." A hundred years ago no one would have thought that wild hogs would become the problem that they are.

Yes sir. The problem with hogs, however, is how quickly they reach sexual maturity and the amount of little bastages they throw with each clutch. As a biologist told me, "They average 12 offspring. . . and 15 survive."

 

[spike.t]

I agree
And still my comment remains true to me and my own ideals and thoughts

Unfortunately it's slowly happening here on some ranches....I don't agree with bringing any non indigenous species here...but on the chat here I got told to shut up basically when I disagreed with people saying its fine .....the chat is for people in the industry...don't want to be any more specific.....

 

[RR 314]

Probably the corn price. Corn was in the $4 range for brief period prior to the Carter Soviet grain embargo. Then it lingered around $2 for a long time. Some weather related bumps then hit $8 i believe in 2008 and many corn farmers were suddenly making $1000/acre profit. Or even more.

This lead to taking out many fence rows, wind breaks, etc. In addition many CRP contracts expired and a lot of wind breaks planted under NRCS programs had matured and were taken out to put in center pivot irrigation. Wind breaks that provided shelter next to a food source were replaced by water and cover crops to control erosion.

Not a positive for the game birds in farmland.

Nailed it. Same thing happened when cotton prices went up in the 1940s/50s. Everyone started planting everything they could. No more brushy fence rows etc. Quail are hatched looking for a way to die, but we certainly help them find a way.

 

[spike.t]

Every third weekend of the month you can go here and bid to your hearts content. Just about any exotic animal you can imagine.

Home | razlivestock

www.razlivestock.com

Any pricing ?...tried looking but to much effort pissing around on the sat wifi

 

[John Wasmuth]

Any pricing ?...tried looking but to much effort pissing around on the sat wifi

No, they, unlike traditional livestock auction houses, don’t post an average per head. I can tell you this though, now that it seems everyone is in the business what we paid $70.00 for, example black buck antelope ewe, 20 years ago is now well over 500.00 on average. Back then you could expect to hunt a ewe for $185.00 or so, now it’s past $700.00, it seems everyone with any land out here at all has high fenced it and is running hunts charging outlandish prices.

 

[spike.t]

There are more tigers in Texas than in the wild in the rest of the world.

A few year's ago I got a call from my state G&F to go get one that was on the loose. I had a guy with a tranquilizer gun lined up along with a veterinarian to help me "oversee" "the operation and recommend dosages.

I ran by the house to grab my Model 70 and 7 tiger pills, just in case.

View attachment 667470

We never found the "tiger"...

(Probably just a bobcat seen by someone with an overactive imagination.)


Probably the most exciting day I've had helping the Georgia DNR!


(I have a friend that got one in Viet Nam in the 60's, but that was hardly hunting)

Jeez you got an extended mag?.....must look impressive.....

 

[CoElkHunter]

We've seen an increase in our wild turkey population in our part of Minnesota. This in an area of natural high roughed grouse population. I'm not sure if grouse go through natural population swings like rabbits and foxes... But when you see a flock of 40 to 100 turkeys out foraging it is hard to believe a grouse nest would survive.

That's what had happened in parts of Kansas some years back. The turkey population exploded and the pheasant population suffered through the destruction of their nests. My friend's brother in law told me the Kansas Fish and Game considered releasing rattlesnakes to control the turkey population but never did. In the early 2000s, he showed me a video of a flock of probably 300 turkeys in a field in November around Mankato where we used to hunt pheasants. This past year, he told me the turkey population is way down in that area. He didn't know why. Of course, along with the pheasants due to drought and CRP tilled over when grain prices were high. The CRP program is what really brought the pheasant populations back when it was instituted. Nesting and cover from weather and predators is irreplaceable.

 

[John Wasmuth]

^ reported

 

[wesheltonj]

Several videos regarding quail on these two websites.

Quail Guard – A medicated feed to treat wild quail

QuailGuard is a special blend of select grains and proprietary active ingredients proven effective in killing parasites on wild quail.

quailguard.com

Northern Bobwhite Quail | Quail Safe | United States

Quail Safe is dedicated to the preservation of wild quail populations through the use of modern science and technology. Quail Safe manufactures quail feeders and other technology to manage for quail.

www.quailsafe.com

 

[WyoBull]

Everything is against the bobwhite quail down in Texas. Raccoon, Opossum, Skunk, snakes, raptors, fire ants, too much rain, too little rain, too much or too little rain at the wrong time, loss of habitat, and the list goes on. Texas A&M and others have spent millions in south Texas on the King Ranch and that area doing studies on the decline of Bobwhite Quail and their study results point to all of the above as to why they have diminished.
Unfortunately there is no silver bullet anyone can point to in order to make a change and the quail will come back.
I hunted quail extensively down in Bee County when we lived in Texas and the quail numbers would fluctuate wildly from year to year with any seemingly big change in conditions.

 

[sgt_zim]

Not that I wouldn't do it, especially if someone else were paying, but I have very little interest in hunting most animals in places they could not be, except for human intervention.


However, I can think of a a couple of few exceptions:

Ringneck Pheasant (in the US)
Red Stag (New Zealand, etc.)

If I though about it longer, I'm sure I could come up with a few more.


Kudu in Texas, no thanks...



(Seeing the world for natural history is important to me, but I'd go to New Zealand or Argentina to hunt exotics)

Nilgai and aoudad. West Texas has about the same weather and topography as the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, it's a good place for aoudad. The Atlas Mountains are a bit higher than the Guadalupe Hidalgo, but our high peak there is nearly 9K feet, and no small amount of the terrain is 5000 feet or higher.

No other places really to hunt nilgai.

 

[sgt_zim]

Those who do not live with fire ants have no idea what a biblical plague they can be in the South. In Texas, it is almost impossible to lay a game bag with a couple of doves in it on the ground or next to fence post. Red ants will swarm it like a scene from The Naked Jungle (Charlton Heston 1954). Fledglings have little chance.

They only need 3 things to be abundant: moisture, friable soil, and warmth. Any place where the soil stays frozen down to depth of a few inches for at least a few weeks each year is too cold.

About the only ag benefit to them is sugar cane - they seem to enjoy feeding on cane borers. They also have a pretty healthy appetite for ticks.

 

[HankBuck]

Just my (somewhat educated) opinion, but I think the "stocking" of or "reintroduction" of Eastern Wild Turkey in many places has been detrimental to Bob-White Quail and Ruffed Grouse populations.


Certainly, not the only reason...

@Safari Dave I’m interested in why you think that? And since No One really knows “why” quail & grouse are declining — your guess could be as good as any. Wildlife biologists have been researching the decline of quail & pheasant for 30 years without answers and without being able to “fix it”. I even read a study that showed whitetail deer will “eat” quail chicks. Since Turkey & ruffed grouse share habitat in most States (where both exist) they have cohabitated for 100s of years.

 

[CZDiesel]

I’m simply not educated enough to offer something other than I can see both sides and both the danger of importing and the benefits…
However I fully support the largest importation program in history of Lion, Leopard, and Croc to the DC area

 

[wesheltonj]

Everything is against the bobwhite quail down in Texas. Raccoon, Opossum, Skunk, snakes, raptors, fire ants, too much rain, too little rain, too much or too little rain at the wrong time, loss of habitat, and the list goes on. Texas A&M and others have spent millions in south Texas on the King Ranch and that area doing studies on the decline of Bobwhite Quail and their study results point to all of the above as to why they have diminished.
Unfortunately there is no silver bullet anyone can point to in order to make a change and the quail will come back.
I hunted quail extensively down in Bee County when we lived in Texas and the quail numbers would fluctuate wildly from year to year with any seemingly big change in conditions.

It appears at least for West Texas, the medicated feed has made a big difference. The South Texas quail also have the intestine parasite. I used it this last year, I will see if it did any good. I am afraid that last cold snap may have been a problem. I also agree they have lots a natural predators and wild pigs too.

 

[Firebird]

In the March/April edition of Sports Afield magazine there is a short article called “Franken-Wildlife” on cloning wildlife. It touches on the op’s topic-worth picking up the issues for this and other articles.-but I mostly buy it for the pictures