Pheasant recovery
needs more help
Habitat a problem
Recovery of Idaho’s pheasant population centers on the
recovery of adequate habitat.
That isn’t easy.
Loss of habitat and decline of pheasant populations are
problems facing many pheasant-rearing states.
Idaho Department of Fish and Game wildlife bureau chief
Steve Huffaker, in a special report to the F&G Commission, explained
some of the problems facing the department in its efforts to provide more
pheasant hunting opportunity.
Bigger farms, bigger fields, corporate farms and chemicals
all play a part in the decline.
Huffaker said states like South Dakota, where there is
extensive retirement of marginal farmland, offer excellent pheasant
habitat through conservation reserve programs.
In Idaho, however, the trend is mainly toward more
intensive agricultural development, center pivot irrigation that
eliminates ditches and wastewater ponds, as well as more dairy hay
operations.
Good pheasant production comes with large areas of
undisturbed habitat, ideally a quarter township in size.
Such areas offer large blocks of undisturbed grass, edge
habitat, roosting sites, thermal cover such as cattail marshes in the
winter, and good.
Idaho has "islands" of suitable habitat,
Huffaker said.
But in the 1960s, the Gem State had four to six birds per
mile—compared to present-day brood counts that turn up fewer than one
per mile in those same areas. Average pheasant harvest per hunter has been
cut nearly in half.
"We can’t get high populations back without getting
the land back to where there is significantly more habitat," said
Huffaker.
F&G is looking toward partnerships with conservation
groups such as Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited, as well as agencies
like the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, to find areas where
habitat can be built, he added.
Sportsman organizations are entertaining ideas for
financial rewards for landowners who maintain good habitat, including a
"walk-in" program similar to those in the Dakotas and Montana.
Huffaker said F&G’s Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs)
serve many hunters in pursuit of a wide variety of game birds and animals,
but WMAs don’t offer enough pheasant habitat to satisfy demand.
The department tripled planting of game farm pheasants
last fall giving hunters more prospects on eight WMAs in the Gem State.
Predators remain a factor in pheasant production, however,
despite F&G efforts to remove predators on one WMA where game farm
birds were introduced before nesting season.
