Everything from turkey poult production to pheasant recruitment to the timing and placement of stocked channel catfish is being dampened by the rains.
Even the submissions of Fish Ohio applications appears to have experienced at least some drenching by the rains.
More directly, though, is the rains’ influences on crop planting. How serious is this production threat can be seen weekly in figures tabulated by the federal government’s Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. These figures are passed along to the Oho Department of Agriculture.
Ohio has approximately 78,000 farms totaling some 14 million acres. Corn, by far, comprises the largest cash crop, its planting accounting for about 6.7 million acres of this total.
And data compiled by the Statistics Service acknowledges that as of June 17 – the last date for which figures were available at writing time – 68 percent of the state’s corn crop was planted compared to 100 percent for both last year and the five-yer average.
The statistics were even more dismal for soybeans: 46 percent planted as of June 17 compared to 94 percent last year as well as for the five-year average.
Whether
these figures will rebound is uncertain, however.
“This situation is still in flux, and that cannot be determined at this time,” said Ohio Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Shelby Croft.
While hope for a rebound cannot entirely be abandoned, the situation is grim enough that Governor Mike DeWine on June 14 petitioned U.S. Agriculture Department Secretary Sonny Perdue for an agricultural disaster designation for Ohio.
Still, the substantial and sustained rains that Ohio’s been encountering may very well have all ready negatively impact ground-nesting birds. Among the vulnerable species are quail, ring-necked pheasants and wild turkeys, assesses Mark Wiley, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s forest game biologist.
“Unfortunately,
much of our better pheasant habitat is on CRP (Conservation Reserve
Program) land, and that is just the sort of land that is set aside
because it’s the most marginal for farming and consequently is also
the most prone to reoccurring flooding,” Wiley says.
Too,
Wiley says when forest edge cover is missing it’s common for some
ground-nesting bird species to move their chicks into crop fields.
Here, the family can take cover underneath a “canopy of maturing
soybean leaves” and other growing grains, Wiley says.
Flood
those field - or else not plant those fields at all - and the proper
protecting cropland vegetation never materializes, Wiley says.
As
for wild turkey poults, while these young birds are able to join
their mothers in jumping into trees to roost at night and
consequently cam avoid any flooding, the young are no less vulnerable
to hypothermia and pneumonia as are quail and pheasant chicks, Wiley
says.
In looking at any re-nesting, should a nest and its clutch of turkey, pheasant or
quail eggs be flooded out a hen might pull off another go at the task
The rub, says Wiley, is that the deeper the incident happens into the
nesting season the less likely a hen will start over, Wiley says.
“The
problem’s been, we just haven’t dried out long enough,” Wiley
says. “Everything in moderation, including rainfall and
temperatures.”
Make
no mistake, either, says Wildlife Division aquatic scientists, even
the agency’s fish management program has experienced challenges
brought about by the seemingly incessant stretches of rumbling
thunderstorms, rain showers and cold fronts.
Among
those tests of patience involves the Wildlife Division’s St. Marys
Fish Hatchery, located in the low-lying region of Auglaize County.
Here, the agency saw itself stoking the pumps in order to remove the
excessive rain water from the fish-rearing ponds, says Kevin Kayle,
administrator for the Wildlife Division’s fish hatchery section.
“That
issue impacted our channel catfish production at St. Marys but we’ve
been able to readjust our stocking schedule, and we’ve also
obtained catfish from our other hatcheries,” Kaye said.
Kayle
did say the stocking of catchable trout, steelhead, walleye, yellow
perch and saugeyes has gone off within a drop of complaint to muddy
the scheduling of waters.
However,
sometimes the agency needed adopted a strategy of re-positioning the
location of where such stocking occurs. This approach is being
accomplished because inland reservoirs are designed to expel excess
water over spillways or down other draining systems.
And that release
of water can include the loss of both recently stocked fish as well
as existing populations of a reservoir’s resident fish, Kayle says.
“In
those case we’ve gone to stocking the middle and upper sections of
reservoirs and lakes,” Kayle says.
In
other respects the inundation has not proven itself to be a negative
issue. This year’s to-date Fish Ohio program’s application
entries are running close to what they were one year ago, says the
administrator of that program, Vicki Farus.
Farus
said as of June 20, the Wildlife Division had recorded 4,033 Fish
Ohio applications. That is a drop of only 103 applications from one
year ago, Farus said.
Sales
of fishing licenses thus far also have seen little impact. Combining
the various resident license permits – even taking into account the
newly created multi-year resident fishing licenses – to-date sales
as of June 21 were down only 20,354 tags: 515,547 for to-date in 2018
and 495,193 to-date this year, says Andy Burt, the Wildlife Division
official in charge of tracking fishing and hunting license sales.
Similarly
the heavy rains may even have resulted in some positive non-intended
consequences.
Wildlife
Division deer
biologist Clint McCoy says ample
precipitation in the spring “undoubtedly
has a positive impact on fawn survival in a couple of ways.”
First,
sufficient rainfall will provide good hiding cover once the fawns are
born, offering bad
weather-protected
bedding
sites for the young deer, McCoy
says.
“And
the other positive,
of course, is that good ground cover
can make it more difficult for a predator to find a
fawn,” McCoy
said.
McCoy
says spring rain-enhanced lush
vegetation actually “provides
important nutritional resources for the doe.”
“The
better condition the mother is in, the better she can provide
nourishment for her fawn, and she
can stay closer to her offspring, too,”
McCoy says.
Though
while cool weather with rains can cause some fawns to fatally
experience hypothermia; in wet summers, fewer human-caused direct
mortality of deer is likely, McCoy says.
“I’ve
talked to a few folks who have yet to get a first cutting of hay, and
these people may only get one cutting due to the wet weather. For
fawns that can survive the elements, they’re less likely to be
caught up in farm machinery this year,” McCoy says.
When considering adult deer, with crops being planted later in this sowing season and delayed crop maturation, Ohio’s hunters should see “more
standing crops during the deer season” than is typically
encountered.
“As you know, those conditions do not bode well for deer hunters
looking to fill a tag. Standing corn provides a frustratingly good
place for deer to hide,” McCoy says. “On the other hand, the deer
could have a significant food source available to rack up on fat
stores that will prepare them for the winter.”
Thus,
the recent rains have – and will continue to – proven to be both
a blessing and a curse.
“At
least with the high water levels the steelhead won’t have any
problems making up the streams,” added Mentor angler Bob Ashley.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
