[Comments in brackets are by Jeannine and Duane]
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From the Northern Crew:
Greetings from the North.
Last week the northern crew set 17 traps and all of them have deer activity. One of our cameras doesn’t have cell service, so that trap continues to be a surprise each day. On Friday we caught our first deer, an adult female. She was enormous. We have three collared deer visiting traps, so we will search for other areas to trap that don’t have collared deer.
As I write this, deer number 2 is in the trap and there is plenty of darkness left to catch another. Aside from deer, the only other wildlife visiting our traps are crows, red squirrels, and chickadees.
This week’s plan is to get some more traps out and continue catching deer. The forecast is calling for colder weather and anywhere from 6-20 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow, and more later in the week. Hopefully, it won’t cause too many issues, but we may have to close our traps for a day or two as some are very remote.
Stay Tuned.
-Tom
Northern Crew Leader
PA Game Commission
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From the Southern Crew:
Hello all!
After all the prep work over the past few weeks, I’m happy to announce that we got our first few captures! There has been deer activity at all of our trap sites, but most have been hesitant to walk all the way into our Clovers. That paired with our annual racoon skirmishes (aka racoons coming in and eating the bait, tripping the door, and then the little scoundrels chewing their way out) has made for a creative start to the season. We had one try to escape out the top of the door. He made it through. But based on what we found at the base of the trap, it must have quite literally squeezed the crap out of him!
Perhaps this was the moment he realized he needed to lay off the corn.
But back to the captures- the crew handled and processed the deer extremely well, and I’m very proud of how they’ve all done so far! It will be interesting to see what the upcoming storm brings in this week and how it will affect the trapping (hopefully in a positive manner). Maybe some of the cautious deer at our sites will finally decide it’s worth the risk.
After checking traps each day, we found some time in the afternoons and evenings to bait more sites, set more traps, and foam more collars which will hopefully be fitted on deer by the end of the season. This week we’ll continue to Clover trap, but we may start to explore options for rocket net sites for the upcoming weeks.
Until next week,
-Michaela
Southern Crew Leader
PA Game Commission
