ENJOYING THE OUTDOORS: PREDATORS HOLD AN IMPORTANT PLACE IN MOTHER NATURE'S PLAN

Relatively speaking, these are good times for predators, those most scorned critters.

Man traditionally has viewed predators as the villains of the animal world. If they are evil, however, they are a necessary evil and an integral part of the scheme of things, the checks and balances of nature.

It's purely human tendency to assign a moral value to animals that kill and eat other animals. Wildlife doesn't deal in such concepts, but rather just does business as nature intended, including consuming others or being consumed.

The largest American predators, the bears, mountain lions and wolves, have fared worst, primarily because they were seen as the greatest threat to humans. Smaller predators, however, have had their difficulties from man because of the perceived competition they offered, preying on favored game animals and even livestock.

"Predators throughout the ages have been blamed for a lot of things," said Mark Kramer, furbearer biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. "It has been thought that predators have a devastating effect on small game animals."

The population swings of small animals, however, depend primarily on the kind of homes they can find in the wild, or in what's left of the wild.

"It's habitat related," Kramer said. "If you have healthy habitat, you're going to have plenty of prey animals available. Predators aren't responsible for depleting game. Instead, it's the availability of prey animals that influences the predator populations instead of the other way around. When you have more prey, more predators can be supported. They are limited by their food sources."

Predators, however, currently are at particularly high population levels because of another variable -- a decrease in the number of them being removed from the wild by trappers. A downturn in the fur market in the past few years has removed much of the economic incentive for taking predatory critters, thus trapping has fallen to a historic low. The results are marked upswings in some species' numbers.

"Gray fox populations are probably as high as they've ever been," Kramer said. "Red fox numbers are high, although not at a record level."

Raccoons and opossums, more properly identified as omnivores (they'll eat almost anything, but they are part-time predators) are in the midst of boom times, Kramer said. Meanwhile, coyotes, which historically aren't common to Eastern regions, continue to expand their range and grow more densely populated within it, he said.

Predatory animals are a built-in factor in nature. Prey species are meant to live with their presence, with part of the prey numbers, especially the weaker and more vulnerable, being culled out by the meateaters.

Still, when predators reach a high point in population swing, the impact on prey can be expected to be a little more significant. Not disastrous, but more notable, perhaps.

What predators eat often is misunderstood. Despite man's worst fears, predators by no means prey exclusively on the most desirable of wildlife.

"Most predators are opportunistic and they'll take what's available," Kramer said.

Much of the prey of predators up to and including coyotes and bobcats are very small mammals, mice and voles, he said.

"They're prey animals that are readily available, but people don't see them," he said.

"When predator populations are high, they'll feed on each other," Kramer said. "Coyotes and bobcats will feed on other smaller predators like `possums. Coyotes may eat foxes.

"Also, predators will take carrion."

Still, meat-eating critters do rely at least in some part on species that man often would like to save for himself.

Rabbits and squirrels are utilized by most of the predators, from coyotes and bobcats down to even the feathered hunters like great horned owls.

Ground-nesting birds like quail are raided by assorted predators. Nests are especially vulnerable to coons, 'possums and skunks. Wild turkey nests and young turkey poults are susceptible to the same varmints.

Larger prey isn't troubled as much as the small. Adult deer aren't frequently taken by predators, although fawns regularly are taken by coyotes and bobcats. Adult deer occasionally may fall victim to bobcats, but the wild felines more often succeed with rabbit- and squirrel-sized meals.

Mountain lions, one of the top-of-the-heap American predators, at least are rumored to be making a comeback. Occasional lion or "panther" sightings are noted throughout many eastern and middle American states where the big cats are supposed to have been eliminated. Some biologists acknowledge that there must be some lions out there, although documentation of the cats is virtually nil.

Mountain lions, whether remnant and resurgent eastern panthers or western cats that have been captive and were released here make their best living off of deer.

At this stage, however, it has to be assumed that if the ghostly cougars do exist out there, there are few enough that they aren't having a significant impact on white-tail populations. Even if lions should prove to exist and increase in number, they coexisted with deer originally and could be expected to do so again with no devastating effect on the prey species.

The least welcome of the predators may be the coyote, which is rather and intruder from the West. The coyote is though to be filling a void left by the extirpation of the red wolf in the East, once the largest canine predator here.

The long-term effects of the coyote in eastern areas aren't yet fathomed for old Wiley's presence in significant number is only a few decades old. Coyotes do create some social problems, occasionally taking sheep, pigs and calves, but the jury is still out on how they will affect wildlife populations.

One significant predator often overlooked is one for which man can take credit. Domestic cats do a fair share of killing in the wild. There are some truly feral cats, but most of the active predatory cats are household varieties that hunt part-time out of instinct, not for need of food.

Kramer notes that a British study concluded that in Great Britain there are something like five million domestic cats that kill an estimated 20 million birds annually. It has been estimated that there are 80 million domestic cats in America, so a deductive comparison would throw the toll on birds here sky high, he noted.

Another source estimated that domestic cats in America kill some 47 million rabbits each year, he said.

"House cats take a big toll on birds and small rodents," Kramer said. "And they're not part of the natural system."

Most people would endorse the taking of mice by household and barnyard cats. Many would not as quickly approve the similar killing of songbirds, rabbits and squirrels.

Predators of all sizes and sorts kill without emotion because it's what they do, it's what they are. Man approves or condones out of moral interpretation or according to how such predation fits his own agenda.

Funny how the judgment of all predators falls to the species that lies at the very top of the food chain. Man, after all, is the ultimate predator.

~Steve Vantreese is outdoors editor of The Paducah Sun.