We have no marsh in my part of Kentucky. Im in the mountains so its all creek and river trapping. Ive seen exactly one "Marsh" in my area that had Rat's in my life and it was a marshy pond by an airport. It actually had rat houses and everything My wife laughs at me every time I slow down to look at it and geek out. Cant trap it but thats ok..
I was told by a lady a couple counties over from me that they sprayed all the creek bank and ditches with ROUNDUP this last spring in her area.. Cant believe folks were ok with the county doing that..

Hey KYBOY, Do y'all have bald eagles over there?...If so, have they increased over the years?

We are starting to see more yea. the most ever likely.. My local lake Dewey Lake now has sightings regularly

That's good info, has your turkey population been declining as well?

Yes, at least thats the general concensus. We have had an explosion in yotes and coons too, Otter were released here in the early 90's and now we have a solid population.. Between habitat destruction and basically "invasive" predators the rats have a hard time.. When I say invasive I mean predatos that they never had to deal with historically. We always had tons of hawks and owls but the rats were able to keep up..

Very interesting...Same here with always having the hawks & owls. Coyotes & Otters came to western KY in the early 80's but the rats stayed strong.

Over the last 10 yrs the bald eagles came in numbers, and I have personally seen them kill rats & wild turkeys....Rat population declined along the same time line locally.

Not ready to point my finger just yet, but it has me very inclined to think eagles are part of it in Kentucky.

New York State DEC is currently deploying a restoration effort on our Lakeview Marsh WMA a few
miles from my home compound along the Lake Ontario shoreline.

I believe it is in partnership with DUCKS UNLIMITED utilizing federal funding
from the GREAT LAKES RESTORATION ACT.

A private contractor currently has two tremendously large tracked shovels about a mile
out into the marsh digging & piling spoil from their excavations.

Not sure whether they are digging potholes or channels but they are operating in an area
of a thick, dryland, "Terra Firma" habitat lacking any significant open water, presumably
to create open water marsh edge habitat that will be open to the lake storm surge (Seiche)
and it's restorative effects to the marsh.

Be interesting to see the effects this attempted restoration has on the health of the marsh.

w

Ky boy the coons here have died off or something. I have asked all the hunters I know if they are having coons around their corn feeders. One guy said he had seen one coon SINCE August. Not any last few nights when it's gotten up to 50 degrees. Coming off the fridge temps I figured they would be hitting the feeders hard but nope. Around here the bald eagles are thick as can be. On Lake Cumberland this time of the year about every cove has a pair sitting around the waters edge.

Here in Iowa, they have always been here. But lately it's like the housing market boom years ago, I probably know of 50+ new nests in the last few years. One being built across the river from me 400 yards away. Crazy amounts of hawks and eagles anymore.

Atrazine has caused loss of plant life along many creeks that once held rats.

What about the Nutria population I caught 3 of those things a couple weeks ago didn't think they were this far north.

That’s interesting take lotsa pics and record the progress. Here they like to build impoundments with control structures. This gives them much more flexibility to experiment with water levels and the impacts.

those sound like artifical islands they are making Walleye
I spent 2 years Going through Sask and Alberta seeing how successful they were . Seems that the eastern bio's did not think coyotes would swim open water to get eggs. Seems western coyotes did not read the rule book.
In the 80' it was 1$ per meter of soil, each island was 1000M, DU put a value at $ 10/ duck donation

The islands did give a good bank for them to dig into and overwinter.

The invasive cattail has a lower carb factor in its root system which is a main winter food source

The smash and bash bio's can figure what they are eating through DNA composition...so in 20 years it has come a long way

I have difficulty with this theory. Plant metabolism change as they mature. They have too. It takes a couple years for seed heads to even develop. What I’m suggesting is a 2 year growth cattail has a different caloric output than that same plant at age 10. I’m not a scientist however I do listen to the marsh. It’s a cool puzzle with many pieces and sometimes fragmented studies cause assumptions. Assuming only sets you back. So unless your study was a multi year analysis I call it skewed.

Goes back to the theory of stagnation.

but every year a new shoot goes out and these are the ones favoured by the winter rats
these are the one that I am referring to
cant remember the student but they went back to the Baltic seas(?) and got some samples from the place of origin of these cattails and compared the values

ships ballast and all the foreign junk-zebra mussels and cattail seeds just to name two
and the railways spread the seeds of when they are stuck on the loads and washed off phrags seeds - across the country

Does Oregon have bald eagles?

I understand they are testing the rhizomes or new shoots. However, I believe the quality of the rhizomes depend on the age of the parent plant. Samples appear to degrade as the parent plant matures. The plant composition changes as the marsh ages. A “new”marsh starts with low standing immature cattails that root to the bottom of the lake bed. Overtime these plants mature And develop seed heads and grow more dense. Eventually they choke out the marsh as walleyed described. So depending on Age of the specimen I believe the results will vary wildly.

Perhaps the muskrat decline is a symptom are an artificially high population that was created in the 60s and 70s when wetland development projects were heavily launched.

I know phragmites are not ideal for muskrats, but I hammered rats in a new marsh that was mostly phrags. Big beautiful rats, too. It was like pulling the same rat out of every hole over and over again all day.

Georgia DNR is conducting same study. GTA just sent email out today. No mrats down this far south, though.

Thank you for sharing your observations, it seems to support my theories.

Realistically my experience with phragmities is very limited, in this area it is primarily a ditch weed. Growing in dry and very shallow areas generally unproductive to muskrat. Most every marsh has a percentage of habitat where elevations are to high too encourage muskrat activity, rendering it unusable. The absence of rats leads to no grazing, these areas grow into impenetrable mats or vegetated “deserts”

Our primary emergents are cattails, bulrush will occur in deeper areas but often Is a favorite of our muskrats. They usually are short lived as overgrazing and cattail encroachment dominate.

A trained eye can Judge the habitat you’re trapping in by looking at your rats. I’m probably talking too much lol.