Ever heard a pheasant?

[mdk2isu]

Ever herd a peasant?

Those common-folk are hard to round up.

*Refrains from making a political joke because too many people have no sense of humor (and to not get this sent to the cave)*

 

[VeloClone]

Ever herd a peasant?

Those common-folk are hard to round up.

[video=youtube;YU6ebNd9v-w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU6ebNd9v-w[/video]

 

[isu22andy]

Lots of keyboard experts in this thread

 

[Heilsqauvador]

Being relatively young, I don't remember what it was like way back in the day. From what I have seen in my small sample size farming hasn't changed much while I have been alive, as I was born after the farm crisis sorted itself out. I remember seeing tons of pheasants as a kid (early 90s). I even saw plenty of them up until we had several really wet springs in a row and they all but disappeared. Lack of other suitable habitat has pushed them to nest in waterways, ditches and crp ground that is too wet to really farm. (How it has been my entire life, mind you) In those wet springs too many nests were drowned out because of this. Now after a couple dry years they are bouncing back.

I'm sure the weather wouldn't have effected them as much if they could nest anywhere they wanted, but hey we need food. I also won't feel bad for an invasive species, it's not like they are in danger of extinction. Their numbers are better than a lot of other native species whose habitats the pheasants stole, but they aren't tasty and fun to shoot so hardly anyone cares.

 

[Turn2]

I was an Animal Ecology major. Senior year in my Wildlife Management course the state biologist from the DNR who leads the small game roadside counts (believe it was Bruce Ehresman or Todd Bogenschutz) come present to us on population management and this exact question came up. He said the data shows that the biggest cause for pheasant population decline was weather. In the early to mid 2000s, Iowa had something like 3 or 4 of it's 10 worst winters (snow cover) in the history of the state. That combined with wet springs did a number on the population. Milder winters these last few years have really helped the birds come back. Habitat/farming practices play some role, but not as significantly as weather conditions.

This doesn't explain why the Dakotas have historically been loaded with birds. Habitat does.

 

[Doc]

1. Turkeys don't eat pheasants.
2. Pheasants can't nest in tilled cropland.

The landscape is what has changed since the days of high pheasant numbers in Iowa. The smaller farms from several decades back had hay fields, pasture, small grains, set aside, and weedy corn and bean fields that provided cover for wildlife.
Conversion of these smaller farms to large corn and bean monocultures, the transition to larger farm equipment and the elimination of fencerows to create larger fields, along with clean farming with improved herbicides and pesticides is what has hurt pheasants the most.

When we moved to an acreage with 180 acres of CRP land, there were so many pheasants. Our untrained golden lab would go crazy and I would still step on them. My uncles would bale that CRP stuff and we would see pheasants just perching on those big round bales.