You have to applaud Pheasants Forever on this eve of pheasant-hunting season ? Saturday through Dec. 31. The national organization, which, true to its name, is dedicated to the conservation of pheasants, is trying. And trying very hard.
Carroll County Chapter No. 622 is the only PF representative in Maryland, according to president Melody Smith of Taneytown. She, her husband Grant and a few others started the group in 2000 after realizing that the farm they bought in 1972 no longer had pheasants filling its fields. “They?re practically extinct,” Smith said of the state?s pheasant stocks.
But there they go, along with the national group, slogging it out with Maryland?s Department of Natural Resources and the state?s farmers, hunters and wildlife experts in trying to gain the biological high ground in the rolling hills, open fields and hedge rows that pheasant like.
They obviously are interested in pheasants and hunting, but they also ? maybe even more so ? are interested in general wildlife habitat and restoration. They have to be. Maryland does not stock pheasant; Pennsylvania stocks 100,000 a year.
That?s perhaps to Maryland?s credit, since pen-raised birds are often little more than cannon fodder, which ? if not shot ? die rapidly from a lack of wild foraging skills. We just can?t seem to raise things the way their mommas would to survive in the wild.
One problem might be the origin of pheasants. The hunter?s ring-necked pheasant (not to be confused with Argus, Lady Amherst?s, golden and silver pheasant, which are of interest to salmon and trout fly-tiers) are an invasive species. They were introduced from China in 1857, reaching their high in Maryland in the 1950s to 1960s. Since then, it has been downhill.
“Pheasant populations in Maryland have declined at least 95 percent since the mid-1960s,” said Bob Long, DNR upland game biologist.
He blames haying practices that went from about two harvests/mowings a year to three a year. More mowings disturb and destroy nests andyoung.
Mark Hooper, a DNR biologist but speaking as habitat chairman of the Carroll County chapter, notes a number of factors in pheasant decline including the following: the loss of small farms that are more conservation-oriented than mega-farms; the switching from native grasses to high quality alfalfa; and a lack of crop rotation.
PF and associated groups and individuals might or might not save pheasant. If they come back, it will take time and effort.
But even without ringneck, there is a bigger picture here of preserved and improved fields and farm lands that are more hospitable to wildlife. Pheasant Forever?s efforts can in turn help everything from quail to other upland game birds and assorted wildlife, both hunted and non-hunted.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected]
