Governor to convene pheasant summit this year

[h2ofwlr]

Article by: DENNIS ANDERSON , Star Tribune
Updated: September 27, 2014 - 8:25 PM

Gov. Dayton wants to find ways to increase the bird’s numbers in the state.

Pheasant numbers have been down in Minnesota and throughout the Upper Midwest in recent years due to habitat loss and cool, wet spring nesting conditions.

Saying he has enjoyed pheasant hunting in Minnesota for nearly 60 years, Gov. Mark Dayton announced Friday he will convene a summit of wildlife and farm experts later this year to find ways to boost the state’s “ringneck’’ population.

“Decisions we make today will determine whether future generations of Minnesotans will have those same [hunting] opportunities,’’ said Dayton in a statement. “I look forward to convening this Minnesota pheasant summit and developing strategies to improve the pheasant population in our state.”

Roadside surveys conducted in August by the Department of Natural Resources found pheasant numbers 58 percent below the 10-year average, and 71 percent below the long-term average.

“Getting wildlife and farm experts together can’t hurt,’’ said Bob Dalager of Morris, a founder in the early 1980s of the Stevens County Pheasants Forever chapter, and a past national board member of that group.

A lifelong upland bird hunter who has seen pheasant numbers rise and fall in west-central Minnesota, Dalager, a lawyer, knows quick fixes will be elusive.

“We’ve lost our Conservation Reserve Program acres out here, or most of them,’’ he said, “and at the prices farmers have been paying for land in recent years, they’re not likely to put it into wildlife habitat anytime soon.’’

Introduced to Minnesota in 1905 when the Department of Game and Fish, as it was called, released 70 pairs of the birds, pheasants were first hunted in the state in 1924.

Just 300 roosters — male birds — were killed that year during a four-day hunt in Hennepin and Carver counties.

But seven years later, 49 counties were opened to pheasant hunting, and more than 1 million birds were killed in a 10-day season.

Pheasants flourished at the time because state farmlands bore little resemblance to those that now extend south and west of the metro.

Hedgerows were common, as were brushy tree lines. Wetlands pitted the countryside. And croplands were not yet sprayed with the fertilizers and other chemicals that today’s highly productive corn and soybean fields require.

The state’s record pheasant harvest occurred in 1941, when nearly 1.8 million birds were killed in just 17 days — a bag that included hens. After that, bird numbers declined before rising again in the late 1950s, thanks to the federal government’s Soil Bank farmland set-aside program.

Minnesota’s largest roosters-only harvest occurred in 1958, when nearly 1.6 million birds were killed.

By comparison, state wildlife officials forecast a harvest this fall of 200,000 birds, in part because of wet spring and early summer nesting conditions.

Still, wildlife experts say, habitat losses are the primary pheasant population suppressor.

Headquartered in the metro, Pheasants Forever likely will join leaders from Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, the Minnesota Waterfowl Association and other groups at the summit, along with state and federal farm and wildlife managers.

“Wildlife habitat protection and creation takes collaboration,’’ said Joe Duggan of Pheasants Forever, “so we’re thrilled to see Gov. Dayton bringing partners together from the state’s conservation and agricultural communities to find sustainable, long-term upland habitat solutions.”

Dayton’s announcement follows a similar summit convened earlier this year in South Dakota by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.

[tornadochaser]

Want more cocks to chase? Simple. Pay the land owners. Create a block cover program: 1/8, 1/4, or 1/2 mile long strips 100 foot wide. 75 feet of grass and 25 feet of sorghum, Milo, or corn. Offer additional incentive for allowing trespass. The days of full quarters of CRP are gone for MN. Strip cover is the best bet.

[Quack]

I thought the Walk In Program was going to cure the pheasant problem!

The reasons they won't stock pheasants apply to walleyes, yet they still put walleyes in lakes where they don't reproduce & sometimes don't survive winter.

[maplelakeduckslayer]

Never really understood fish stocking...almost like shooting a penned up deer.