CRP Habitat Loss Major Contributor to 46% Decline in South Dakota Pheasant Numbers
OutdoorHub 08.31.11
Saint Paul, Minn. – August 31, 2011 – South Dakota’s annual pheasant brood survey results are in, revealing a 46 percent decrease in the pheasants-per-mile index from last year. While the hard winter of 2010-2011 didn’t do ringnecks any favors, Pheasants Forever says the more troubling statistic is the 25 percent loss in Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acreage in the state since 2007, a loss that finally appears to be catching up to the state’s overall pheasant population.
CRP grassland habitat is essential for pheasant production, and enrollment in South Dakota has declined from 1.56 million acres in 2007 to the current 1.17 million acres. According to the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department, that reduction equates to more than 600 square miles of grassland habitat. Comparatively, pheasant numbers in the state are now 41 percent lower than the average of the past 10 years, a period that represented a modern historical high.
“Even South Dakota, the crown jewel of pheasant habitat and pheasant hunting, is not immune to the devastating effects of large-scale upland habitat loss,” says Dave Nomsen, Pheasants Forever’s Vice President of Government Affairs and a lifelong pheasant hunter who visits South Dakota each autumn. “We knew this day was coming when important pheasant habitats provided by the cover in Conservation Reserve Program fields were lost,” Jeff Vonk, Secretary of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department, said in his agency’s 2011 Pheasant Outlook.
With an additional 500,000-plus acres of South Dakota CRP land slated to expire in the next five years, Nomsen says it’s imperative pheasant hunters and conservationists speak up in support of the heralded land conservation program in the upcoming federal Farm Bill debate. “Right now, the landscape of South Dakota is ground zero for conservation. Anyone who’s enjoyed the phenomenal pheasant hunting in South Dakota the last decade can thank the Conservation Reserve Program. Now it’s time to give back and let federal policy makers know how strongly we feel about protecting upland habitat.” Nomsen added, “Additionally, the use of targeted CRP SAFE acres is part of the solution right now, but unfortunately USDA has not addressed this need in South Dakota by allocating additional acres even when the state’s landowners have shown continued demand for the practice.”
Despite a steep decline in this year’s index, South Dakota still boasts the highest pheasant population in the country. “A poor year by South Dakota standards is an excellent year anywhere else, so pheasant hunters do need to put these percentages in perspective,” Nomsen said. “All things considered, pheasant numbers in much of the traditional pheasant range of the state are still good despite the declines in the counts,” Vonk said, “Much of South Dakota will continue to provide a premier opportunity to hunt pheasants.” Even with extremely unfavorable weather conditions and loss of CRP lands, South Dakota’s pheasant abundance is still comparable to levels of the 1990s-early 2000s when the overall pheasant harvest averaged a respectable 1.2 million birds annually.
About Pheasants Forever
Pheasants Forever, including its quail conservation division, Quail Forever, is the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to upland habitat conservation. Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever have more than 130,000 members and 700 local chapters across the United States and Canada. Chapters are empowered to determine how 100 percent of their locally raised conservation funds are spent – the only national conservation organization that operates through this truly grassroots structure.
