A NEW PERSPECTIVE AND METHODS FOR PHEASANT MANAGEMENT
ABSTRACT
We have developed a new concept and methods for management of the ring-necked pheasant, Phasianus colchicus. These methods have pro*duced high-density, local populations in small areas of nonagricultural, irrigated habitat by increasing chick production and survival, and related juvenile recruitment. We use enhanced territory cover to concentrate higher-density breeding populations in such suitable management units to achieve greater chick production. We obtain higher chick survival and recruitment primarily by producing abundant insect/arthropod food for chicks and other young pheasants, achieved by management of natural cover, mainly by timely disturbance and supplemental irrigation, but without plantings. We discuss development and application of the implementation methods and their biological basis, mainly a product of our studies in combination with results of relevant British research. In field-testing this system at Grizzly Island Wildlife Area (GIWA), located in a mild-winter region in central California, pheasant production over a 3-year period (2001-2003) was approximately 4-6 times greater than from a comparable, conventionally managed area; also, in the third year, the 73 acre (29.5 ha) test unit produced >2-3 pheasants/acre (0.4 ha), approximately doubling the density record for pheasants in Cali*fornia. At Sodhouse Farms, a private ranch in a severe-winter region in
central Oregon, prescribed implementation of the system in 2005 was followed by an increase in the pheasant bag that year from a previous average of 4 to 144, indicative of a population density as high or higher than at GIWA. These examples illustrate the potential that the concept and methods can have, in appropriate circumstances, to develop, main*tain, or restore viable pheasant populations, especially in small areas of non-cropland habitat. However, the system needs to be adapted to regional or local conditions and tested more widely over longer periods to better assess the potential and role it can play in future management for pheasants, or possibly other wildlife species, which we encourage with this publication.
INTRODUCTION
California formerly enjoyed widespread pheasant populations, some regionally abundant (>1 bird/acre, 0.40 ha). These were generally supported by agricultural habitat consisting of irrigated field crops (Hart et al.1956). However, increasing application of new technologies and economic pressures to agriculture resulted in cleaner and more intensive farming practices following World War II. These cropland-supported populations of pheasants declined quickly and essentially disappeared as pheasant habitat attributes of farmlands were degraded and lost. The reported pheasant bag in the San Joaquin Valley of California decreased 83% from 1970 to 1986 (Hart 19903).
Cropland habitat that was formerly productive for pheasants no longer produced these birds after it became generally bare soil extensively devoid of cover at frequent intervals. Many reliable sources of free surface water also disappeared, with pipeline systems replacing open ditches. In addition, extensive conversions to large-scale crop monocultures lacking essential habitat diversity were similarly unproductive of pheasants.
Further evidence that the underlying problem was loss of habitat attributes in croplands was the persistence of local populations of ringnecks in suitable non-agricultural circumstances. Such sites generally were relatively small, virtual islands of diversified habitat with greater continuity and stability, typically in wildlife or natural areas usually managed by governmental agencies. Other such habitat and local populations continued on many private hunting clubs, some fields retired from agricultural production, and similar rural properties.
Ensuring habitat conditions that would optimize or maximize these remaining local populations could help compensate for pheasant numbers lost from former agricultural habitat. Also, such a program apparently offered the best potential for restoring and maintaining viable populations of wild pheasants in both the near and long-term in California, and possibly elsewhere. However, in company with many states, California?s Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) has relied mainly on wild
pheasant production as a free and incidental byproduct of favorable agriculture. Accordingly, effective habitat management practices appropriate for the changed circumstances had not been developed in California, or elsewhere in the U.S. that we could ascertain. Thus, determining pertinent biological and behavioral information for pheasants in these conditions and developing appropriate management strategies and methods were the first steps for such a program, which we undertook and describe here.
