Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Texas Wildlife Suffer in Drought





In many parts of the Texas Hill Country the wildlife are really starting to suffer from the lack of rain. In some areas the fire danger is extremely high and the country looks all dried up and cracked.


This has a tremendous effect on wildlife populations as the food and water is nonexistent during the time that many species are breeding to provide next year’s crop of youngsters. The losses are not just in big game but affect turkeys, quail, dove and other animals. This goes right up the food chain and we even see losses in the predators as the prey base decreases. There is almost no browse left in some areas and many of the stock ponds and tanks have dried up. If you have the resources and opportunity to provide water or food for your wildlife now is the time.





On a side note we have taken several dead or almost dead deer out of fences in the last month. My brother and I are working to make the fences on our place where they cannot trap a deer in the top two wires. When a deer jumps the fence if the hind feet go between the top two wires they will loop over the fence and trap the deer to die a slow death. The answer is to use fence stays between the posts. This is simply a twisted piece of steel wire that keeps the strands of wire at an even distance apart and prevents them from trapping deer. They can be purchased at most fencing supply stores. Help our wildlife if you can, meanwhile send up a few prayers for rain. Thanks, Wild Ed

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