Muskrat Decline??

[wbranch]

A bit of topic but on Wednesday at the Papermill Pool on the Tully a mink or a weasel jumped in the river a few feet upstream of me and swam across the river. It had the dark chocolate brown color of a mink but it was about 2' long so I'm not sure what it was.

 

[foxtrapper1972]

wbranch- Large male mink. Females are half that size. I see a lot of mink up there.

Have seen River Otters on Delaware and Susquehanna. They are bigger yet!

 

[nymphingmaniac]

fond memories- all this talk of muskrats. Trapped them from age of 6-16. Caught coon and mink too. This was during the european fur boom and in the 70s muskrats were going for 3.5-4.00 a piece, unskinned. 0.50 or 0.75 more if skinned. Made a lot of money for a kid.
Good to read about a few fellow trappers. After wading in lug-soled rubber hippers in Nov-feb carrying 30-50 pounds of traps and/or rats on you, wading trout streams in any type of boots is a cake walk!

 

[troutbert]

foxtrapper1972 wrote:
In my area the Muskrat decline coincided with the disappearance of Ringneck Pheasants and popularizing of no till farming. Agree with others Mink and raptors on rise but wonder if some type of agricultural pollution could be involved?

There could be a link.

When no till farming was introduced, that was accompanied by a very great increase in the amounts of herbicides applied to control weeds.

This may have impacted both the pheasants and the muskrats.

Pheasants: Before no till, there were a lot of weeds growing underneath the corn, which provided shelter and food for the pheasants.

With no till, the heavy use of herbicides often creates a situation of field of corn, but with just bare dirt underneath, with no understory of weed as before. So, wild pheasant populations plummeted.

Muskrats: The herbicides may have reduced the amount of aquatic vegetation growing in the streams. Aquatic vegetation is the muskrats' main food source.

All, IMHO.

 

[Tack-L-Tyer]

Some opinions have leaned toward a steady increase in Tyzzers disease.

 

[JeffK]

Somewhat off topic, back back in the day popular flies were bucktails, muskrat nymphs, pheasant tails, and any fly with peacock herl. In a world where fly shops were practically unknown (at least to me) and I ordered my few materials by mail from Reed Tackle scraps of fur and feathers from deer, muskrats and pheasants were always available at no cost. Add squirrel tails to the list - the price of a squirrel tail was a 22 shell, or free if you felt like dealing with road kill. Oddly enough, wood ducks were pretty scarce until the 70's when everybody and their brother started putting up nesting boxes and the population rebounded. My 70's jump shooting provided wood duck skins that supplied me to about 4 years ago. The trimmings of muskrat hide I got from trappers will last me the rest of my days.

I can't jump shoot any of my old haunts because they are all developed these days and I buy wood duck skins. My muskrat better last me because I don't know any trappers today. I buy my buck tails because it is too much work to skin, cure, and dye them.

 

[Redfin]

I trap. There is defiantly a decline in them.

 

[FarmerDave]

I trapped them years ago, and in late 70s, a good one got $12 and I heard of people getting $16. The most I got was $8.

I have then in my pond.

I used to have a big problem with cattails, but the muskrats wiped it all out, then they proceeded to wipe out the lily pads which I actually planted.

I really didn't have a problem with that. I just wish they didn't rear the bank up so badly.

A couple years ago I let someone trap them. They didn't get nearly as many as I thought they would.

 

[PhilC]

I randomly saw one today in a local creek, where I've only seen them in the river...completely anecdotal instance. It was cool to see a carp follow up the muskrats mud line