Posts Tagged ‘Southwestern Maine Hunting Report’
Posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 by Maine Sportsman
Physical Characteristics
Region A is the southern most region in the state, made up of ninety towns in York, Cumberland, Oxford, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc Counties. While the region represents approximately 10% of the state’s area it has almost 50% of the state’s population. The region can be characterized as three main areas. The coastal strip, which is that area east of the Maine Turnpike, the central area, and the western foothills, which extend up into the lower portion of Oxford County. Over the past 50 years there has been a continual increase in both the amount of development and the amount of forested land while at the same time there has been a continual decline in the amount of agriculture. In that time the amount of agricultural land, within the region, has declined from 30% to 10%. At the same time, the human population, within the region, has increased approximately 30%. The development pressure has not been constant across the region, it is strongest along the coast and diminishes as one moves west. Some concerns within the region have been the increasing amounts of posted or restricted land, increasing amounts of development and the associated loss of quality habitat, and balancing deer accidents and crop damage complaints with the hunters request for more deer.
Wildlife Management Areas
While the percentage of Department owned land within the region is small, the regional staff currently manages 9 wildlife management areas which total approximately 20,000 acres. The largest management area is the Brownfield Bog WMA, located in the towns of Brownfield and Fryeburg, which is comprised of a mixture of 5700 acres of wetland and upland habitats. The area offers good deer and waterfowl hunting and is accessable by several dirt roads. Weather is a major factor with regards to access into this WMA. The Saco River flows through the middle of the area and many of the access roads into the “bog area” are flooded after heavy rains. During dryer years the river also provides access to some of the “harder to get to” parts of the area. A second area which offers good deer hunting is the Steep Falls WMA which contains 4900 acres of primarily upland habitat. This area is bordered on three side by tarred roads (Rts. 113, 11, and 114) offering easy access to the public.
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Tags: Southwestern Maine Hunting Report • Categories: General
Posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 by Maine Sportsman
Physical Characteristics
Region A is the southern most region in the state, made up of ninety towns in York, Cumberland, Oxford, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc Counties. While the region represents approximately 10% of the state’s area it has almost 50% of the state’s population. The region can be characterized as three main areas. The coastal strip, which is that area east of the Maine Turnpike, the central area, and the western foothills, which extend up into the lower portion of Oxford County. Over the past 50 years there has been a continual increase in both the amount of development and the amount of forested land while at the same time there has been a continual decline in the amount of agriculture. In that time the amount of agricultural land, within the region, has declined from 30% to 10%. At the same time, the human population, within the region, has increased approximately 30%. The development pressure has not been constant across the region, it is strongest along the coast and diminishes as one moves west. Some concerns within the region have been the increasing amounts of posted or restricted land, increasing amounts of development and the associated loss of quality habitat, and balancing deer accidents and crop damage complaints with the hunters request for more deer.
Wildlife Management Areas
While the percentage of Department owned land within the region is small, the regional staff currently manages 9 wildlife management areas which total approximately 20,000 acres. The largest management area is the Brownfield Bog WMA, located in the towns of Brownfield and Fryeburg, which is comprised of a mixture of 5700 acres of wetland and upland habitats. The area offers good deer and waterfowl hunting and is accessable by several dirt roads. Weather is a major factor with regards to access into this WMA. The Saco River flows through the middle of the area and many of the access roads into the “bog area” are flooded after heavy rains. During dryer years the river also provides access to some of the “harder to get to” parts of the area. A second area which offers good deer hunting is the Steep Falls WMA which contains 4900 acres of primarily upland habitat. This area is bordered on three side by tarred roads (Rts. 113, 11, and 114) offering easy access to the public.
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Tags: Southwestern Maine Hunting Report • Categories: General
Posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 by Maine Sportsman
Physical Characteristics
Region A is the southern most region in the state, made up of ninety towns in York, Cumberland, Oxford, Androscoggin, and Sagadahoc Counties. While the region represents approximately 10% of the state’s area it has almost 50% of the state’s population. The region can be characterized as three main areas. The coastal strip, which is that area east of the Maine Turnpike, the central area, and the western foothills, which extend up into the lower portion of Oxford County. Over the past 50 years there has been a continual increase in both the amount of development and the amount of forested land while at the same time there has been a continual decline in the amount of agriculture. In that time the amount of agricultural land, within the region, has declined from 30% to 10%. At the same time, the human population, within the region, has increased approximately 30%. The development pressure has not been constant across the region, it is strongest along the coast and diminishes as one moves west. Some concerns within the region have been the increasing amounts of posted or restricted land, increasing amounts of development and the associated loss of quality habitat, and balancing deer accidents and crop damage complaints with the hunters request for more deer.
Wildlife Management Areas
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Tags: Southwestern Maine Hunting Report • Categories: General
Posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
We are currently in the midst of the statewide trapping season. The beaver trapping season began this week in WMD 15 around Fryeburg and will open on December 15 in WMD’s 20-24. High precipitation during October and November has elicited many calls to the regional office with concern of flooding from beaver flowages. Once the trapping season opens, these issues can be addressed through recreational trapping. Prior to this, we work with our Animal Damage Control agents to modify the flowage level or trap and relocate individual beaver.
The beaver is a significant player in the natural and cultural history of North America. The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony had established a profitable fur trade with Indians in Maine, via the Kennebec River, in the 17th century. Beaver pelts were a major export to England at this time. Later, in the 1800′s, the market for beaver fur encouraged the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the quest for the Northwest Passage and European settlement of the present-day western United States. These trappers were frontiersman such as John Colter, or part of the elite French-Canadian Voyageurs, who plied the waters from Montreal to Winnipeg with a canoe full of furs. Today’s trappers play an important role in wildlife management through a regulated trapping season. Trapping allows us to reach a compromise between the creation of high value wetlands for a variety of species and human tolerance of beaver and the flowages that can result in property or road damage. Trapping also provides unique insight into the daily habitats of wildlife that are best understood in the woods and waters where they live.
The expanded archery season for deer continues in parts of Region A, and in Wells, there is a special archery hunt to reduce the deer population in the Wells Reserve. This is a collaborative effort between IFW, The Town of Wells, Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Rachel Carson NWR and the Maine Bowhunters Association.
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Tags: Southwestern Maine Hunting Report • Categories: General
Posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 by Maine Sportsman
A few weeks ago, as I was leaving the voting booth on Election Day, an old friend stopped me to tell me about a piece of land his is donating to the local land trust. For several years now, he has made his property available to me for the annual Christmas Bird Count so I was very pleased to hear it will be permanently protected. Before leaving, he also mentioned that he had recently seen a rabbit on his property. Somewhat surprised by the report, I queried him, “A rabbit, are you sure it wasn’t a snowshoe hare?” No, he was positive, it was a cottontail. Freeport, although not considered a hotspot for New England cottontails, is on the northern edge of their range in Maine. The prospect of a Freeport population was exciting indeed. New England Cottontail populations have significantly declined in Maine, so much so that they were listed as a state endangered species this past September under the Maine Endangered Species Act, and are currently listed as a candidate threatened species with the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the Federal Endangered Species Act. New England cottontail numbers are believed to have dropped to only a few hundred individuals, and their range, which used to extend as far as Fryeburg, Lewiston, and Belfast, now includes only York and Cumberland Counties, 17% of its former range. The reasons for this decline are twofold, a shift in habitat through natural succession and loss of available remaining habitat from development and associated increased predation. New England Cottontails need brushy, early successional upland habitat. Given that their remaining range lies in the heart of southern Maine’s development activity, old fields, and shrub lands have been replaced by subdivisions, or have reverted to forest stands. Add to this loss of habitat, increased human activity and an increase of outdoor pets such as free roaming cats, and the future for New England cottontails can appear bleak.
For years, I operated a banding station at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth, and up until about two summers ago, we would see New England Cottontails almost every morning we banded. As much as I love birds, it’s hard not be smitten with a rabbit. I would often stop and watch as they fed on the edge of a shrub thicket, their ears perked up, whiskers twitching, all the while chewing a favored plant. Always very alert and rather jumpy; as soon as they caught wind of you, they would retreat back into the thicket where they would remain for the next few minutes, until they felt secure enough to slowly venture back to the edge of the grass. New England Cottontails, unlike Eastern Cottontail, are not likely to venture too far into the open. In fact, their preferred habitat is very dense thickets or shrubs, with as much as 50,000 stems per hectare. Here in Maine, we just have New England Cottontails, so the only species you might confuse them with is a snowshoe hare. New England Cottontails are a medium sized rabbit, 15-17 inches, with a dark brown to buff coat that has a slight black wash. The back edge of their ears is black, and they have a distinct black spot between their ears. Eastern Cottontails, the rabbit so commonly seen on lawns and pastures in southern New England, were introduced to the region by local hunting clubs and don’t occur in Maine. Snowshoe hares have much larger ears and hind feet, have brown fur in the summer, which turns white in the winter.
This winter, MDIWF and USFWS will be working together on a project to document New England Cottontails throughout southern Maine. We’ll be conducting tracking surveys after snowfall, looking for browsed areas, and collecting scat samples. Our efforts will focus on sites where there have been known occurrences of NEC in the past, primarily on lands currently in conservation ownership. In addition, we will be working with land trusts and willing landowners to try and document populations at new sites. We are currently looking for volunteers to help us survey about 75 parcels in York and Cumberland counties. In early winter we will be conducting training sessions for anyone interested in helping with this project. You don’t need tracking experience, or a background in biology; just a willingness to learn, a flexible schedule, and a pair of snowshoes would be helpful. To learn more about this project, volunteer, report a sighting, or if you have a property you would like to have surveyed, please email me at judy-camuso@maine.gov
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Tags: Southwestern Maine Hunting Report • Categories: General
