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Pretty Sad

dedgeez

dedgeez

death from above
This is a copy of an email that I received! Sad thing is......... I feel it's only going to get worse as long as crop prices remain this high.







FYI – thanks to everyone who assists with this data collection, much appreciated. Full report attached.

Wish the news was better. On the upside a few regions did show small increases this year EC, SW, and SC. Course with numbers so low the increase does not mean a lot in bird numbers.

In a nutshell (average critters counted per route)
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Pheasant 2010 11.2 2011 6.8 Change -39.5%
Quail 2010 .36 2011 .23 Change -36.1%
Cottontail 2010 3.2 2011 2.2 Change - 31.9%

Pheasant, quail, and cottontails counts are all new lows. Expected and exactly as my models predicted given another winter with 38” of snow and a spring with 9” of rain.

This past winter and spring were bad for all of the Midwest pheasant states, SD down 46%, MN down 64%, NE down 20%, ND down 30-50%, KS down significantly from the drought.

http://www.iowadnr.gov/Hunting/PheasantSmallGame/AugustRoadsideSurveyData.aspx


Todd Bogenschutz
Upland Wildlife Research Biologist
Iowa DNR - Boone Research Station
1436 255th St
Boone, IA 50036
 
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I agree that high crop prices will continue to influence farmers to plant more acres and thereby reduce cover for small game, in general. But consider this scenario...my farm has 90 acres of CRP, which has for over two decades now been in brome. (Brome is not good for quail and pheasants.) Adjacent to me has historically been pasture ground and timber/brush, very little row crops. There have been very few pheasants and quail in the last 10 years or so. (I bought the farm about 10 years ago.) Although I understand from longtime neighbors that the area used to be prime time quail country, and I don't doubt that. 30 years ago it was more pasture and brush, with classic fencelines, etc.

At any rate, as more ground has been converted over to row crops AND the CRP programs has been changed to allow/promote a change in the composition of the CRP, I can see where my immediate area will be MUCH better for small game, particularly pheasants. Several nearby pastures have been switched to row crops(food source) and my brome has been transitioned to a more wild mix of grasses and weeds(food and cover).

Just 5 years ago I had NO row crops adjacent to me, but now I have at least 4 sizeable fields, formerly pastures, that are "touching" me.

I am seeing more pheasants every year even though the winters have been tough and the springs have been killers with the heavy rains and the predators are in high supply. Net, net, with high grain prices there will be fewer birds in many "traditional" areas, but there may well be more, perhaps a lot more, in some areas, like my area, that haven't been as strong.

We really need the spring rains to die down, that is far and away the biggest limiter in my area IMO.
 
CRP is going away and that is what will kill the upland populations. My old man is pulling out all our CRP this fall and is going to farm it again. I can't blame him for doing it with the crop prices being so high. Not to mention right in the CRP contract it says that if the government doesn't have the funds they don't have to pay you. Not exactly a comforting thought with the way the economy is right now. I guess the glory years of pheasant hunting are behind us at least for now anyway.
 
Yep...if you're out near traditional pheasant ground in the mornings these days you didn't need a DNR count to tell you bird numbers are down.

On the flip side, I hear it's an all time record high duck and goose population.

NWBuck
 
What is crazy is we are seeing more birds this year than ever before on the roads. We don't plan on shooting any though hoping they will rebound.
 
I used to be able to drive in any direction and shoot pheasants. Not anymore. Too bad, hope they make a rebound by the time my kids are old enough to go.
 
With the lack of CRP or really any other "good" cover around where I hunt, pretty much the only place for pheasants to go is in ditches... I wish there were a law that would state that a ditch cannot be mowed unless it is adjacent to someones home. At least not mow the whole thing.. I could see just mowing from the roadbed to the bottom so drivers can see at intersections, etc.
 
Liv4Rut said:
What is crazy is we are seeing more birds this year than ever before on the roads. We don't plan on shooting any though hoping they will rebound.
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Unless you're shooting hens, it really doesn't make all that much difference in next years' population to shoot roosters this year. Sometimes roosters need to be shot as they'll run hens off limited food sources during the toughest part of the winter.

NWBuck
 
NWBuck said:
Unless you're shooting hens, it really doesn't make all that much difference in next years' population to shoot roosters this year. Sometimes roosters need to be shot as they'll run hens off limited food sources during the toughest part of the winter.

NWBuck
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I've never bought into this theory. It makes no sense to me. If you don't shoot a rooster and it doesn't die of natural causes or a predator, it's going to be around next year, thus increasing the population. I also don't believe that roosters run of hens. If this was the case, you would see only roosters or only hens in certain areas. I've hunted pheasants since I was old enough to carry a gun and I've never seen an example of this. Especially in the tough winter months when the birds are flocked up, you never see a group of just rooster or just hens. They are all together. Lack of habitat is the primary reason why numbers are so low.
 
I recently had someone tell me that they are looking into the possiblitly of RR ready Corn, RR ready Beans, and other specialty varieties causing lower fertility rates in pheasants and other animals. Has anyone else heard this? I was told that it was first discovered in cattle farms that fed the RR ready varieties as feed for the cattle. Supposedly the fertility rate dropped and the need for atificial insemination increased. When the feed was changed, the fertility rate increased.

If you buy into this theory our deer populations will be dropping as well.:confused:
 
The average lifespan of a pheasant is said to be less than a year because they face 4 major sources of mortality. Hunters, Predators, Mowing nesting areas and extreme weather, so I don't buy into not hunting them so they have a chance to come back, because you can't control 2 of the 4 sources of mortality and maybe not 3 of the 4 if you don't own your own ground. One Rooster can service 15 hens or more in a spring. I agree with 180 that lack of habitat for them to thrive is the reason numbers are so low. I know down here in southern Iowa there is a hawk or owl on every fence post. Just my 2 cents.
 
bowman said:
I recently had someone tell me that they are looking into the possiblitly of RR ready Corn, RR ready Beans, and other specialty varieties causing lower fertility rates in pheasants and other animals. Has anyone else heard this? I was told that it was first discovered in cattle farms that fed the RR ready varieties as feed for the cattle. Supposedly the fertility rate dropped and the need for atificial insemination increased. When the feed was changed, the fertility rate increased.

If you buy into this theory our deer populations will be dropping as well.:confused:
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First I have to ask, what was it switched too? How do they absolutely know that it was round up corn, then switched to "another" type of corn? Feed mills don't discriminate, they take all of it.


I don't buy into that, basically because this is what I look at on a daily basis. The round up ready trait has absolutely no effect on how the proteins are in a plant or any other physical make up of the plant, it is simply resistant to round up. So for the soybeans, that is a 100% false negative. Conventional and round up ready soybeans are the exact same bean, same basically everything, with the only difference to a round up bean is resistant to round up.

As far as the corn, when you get into VT2, VT3, yield guard plus, yieldguard, smartstax, and so on, you get those resistance traits by proteins. For example, a corn root worm will bite into a root worm resistant corn, and be instantly killed because of the balance of proteins within the root system. I don't really buy into that being the reason either. The proteins are stored in the roots of the plant, when the plant die's, it takes most nutrients and water to the root system to be stored. Not much is dispersed into the ear or the grain.

If they want to start blaming round up for the cause, why not Liberty link corn? It is resistant to liberty the same way corn is resistant to round up. Why not clearfield corn (Lighting resistant corn)? How about the Herculex trait? Not much mention of them, basically because most of these test are done by company's that want Monsanto traits and technology's to go down the crapper, so their traits can exceed. Hate to tell them, Monsanto technology isn't going anywhere, and has done more for yield across the world than any other company in the Agriculture business today.

Look at it this way, what is more harmful to the environment, a corn with traits and genetics built in to take care of the pest, or using the old powder insecticides and liquid insecticides during post spraying, both of which are very harmful to any animal, bird, or insect because they are not "selective" in what they harm, while the genetics are select in what they go after?
 
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Wednesday I attended a tech meeting for the NW district of the Wildlife Bureau. T.B. gave us a presentation outlining all of the statistical analysis he's come up with over the years. Habitat is obviously crucial and there are many other factors that have lead to the demise of our pheasant population. Here is the bottom line, though: the magic number is 30 inches. Meaning, if we hit 30in of snow, numbers go down, regardless of spring weather. Also, I believe it was 8in of rain in April/May. More than 8 means numbers go down... We've had 5 consecutive years where snow and rain accumulation has exceeded those numbers every year. There was a lot of talk about winter habitat to overwinter birds in severe weather years. The consensus seems to be that we need to take a proactive approach to fight what we think is the new norm weather patterns. I know that I was highly disappointed with the number of critters I counted on my roadside routes. However, I do see birds often and have seen many broods this year, and there is a positive correlation between the varieties of habitat I deal with and bird numbers. I'll try to get you guys some good, concrete info.
 
nannyslayer said:
First I have to ask, what was it switched too? How do they absolutely know that it was round up corn, then switched to "another" type of corn? Feed mills don't discriminate, they take all of it.


I don't buy into that, basically because this is what I look at on a daily basis. The round up ready trait has absolutely no effect on how the proteins are in a plant or any other physical make up of the plant, it is simply resistant to round up. So for the soybeans, that is a 100% false negative. Conventional and round up ready soybeans are the exact same bean, same basically everything, with the only difference to a round up bean is resistant to round up.

As far as the corn, when you get into VT2, VT3, yield guard plus, yieldguard, smartstax, and so on, you get those resistance traits by proteins. For example, a corn root worm will bite into a root worm resistant corn, and be instantly killed because of the balance of proteins within the root system. I don't really buy into that being the reason either. The proteins are stored in the roots of the plant, when the plant die's, it takes most nutrients and water to the root system to be stored. Not much is dispersed into the ear or the grain.

If they want to start blaming round up for the cause, why not Liberty link corn? It is resistant to liberty the same way corn is resistant to round up. Why not clearfield corn (Lighting resistant corn)? How about the Herculex trait? Not much mention of them, basically because most of these test are done by company's that want Monsanto traits and technology's to go down the crapper, so their traits can exceed. Hate to tell them, Monsanto technology isn't going anywhere, and has done more for yield across the world than any other company in the Agriculture business today.

Look at it this way, what is more harmful to the environment, a corn with traits and genetics built in to take care of the pest, or using the old powder insecticides and liquid insecticides during post spraying, both of which are very harmful to any animal, bird, or insect because they are not "selective" in what they harm, while the genetics are select in what they go after?
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I figured that someone smarter than me could shoot that one down.:D This was the first time I had ever heard it and thought I would throw it out. Thanks for clarifying Brian!
 
If our upland game bird population is based off of "bad winters and wet springs", why is North and South Dakota's populations not decreasing at the same amount as Iowa's. We get the same weather (in fact their winters are probably worse in terms of cold and precip). They have more habitat this is tue. Do they have better state funding for upland game birds? I think they have a predator bird weekend? Why can't the Iowa DNR model things after the Dakota's. They seem to know what works. In fact I would be in favor of suspending the season in general for a few years say south of highway 30, if it meant exponential growth in bird populations in the next 5 - 10 years. It would be a small price to pay to get the population back and on the right track.
 
DoneRight said:
I would be in favor of suspending the season in general for a few years say south of highway 30, if it meant exponential growth in bird populations in the next 5 - 10 years. It would be a small price to pay to get the population back and on the right track.
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Absolutely! :way: I don't care what anyone says, this WOULD increase the population!
 
DoneRight said:
If our upland game bird population is based off of "bad winters and wet springs", why is North and South Dakota's populations not decreasing at the same amount as Iowa's. We get the same weather (in fact their winters are probably worse in terms of cold and precip). They have more habitat this is tue. Do they have better state funding for upland game birds? I think they have a predator bird weekend? Why can't the Iowa DNR model things after the Dakota's. They seem to know what works. In fact I would be in favor of suspending the season in general for a few years say south of highway 30, if it meant exponential growth in bird populations in the next 5 - 10 years. It would be a small price to pay to get the population back and on the right track.
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SD has miles and miles and miles of CRP/grass/cover for the birds. They get as bad of winters as we do, but they have the cover to sustain them. They also had a really wet spring and last estimates I read was that SD's population is down as much as 46% this year in places. Guess I'll find out in October. If SD had the fertile soil that Iowa does, I bet it would be a different story there as well.
 
I think SD bird numbers are down also. A lot of them release birds to hunt.

Mobile Cooter
 
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