P.c. hagenbecki

oldandnew said:
You might want to take note of the policy of the USFW service. They are on a crusade to manage strictly for "native" species. This includes erradication of invasive species, (there's that word again), like russian olive, a species that allows for survival of pheasants in harsher areas of the west. Elimination of pheasants as a result of this activity is met by the retorical response, "are they native?" The implication obvious. There are others on this site who can give first hand testimony. Sounds like all these wildlife agencies went to the same seminar and drank the same Kool-aid.
Click to expand...

Yes the "new Wave" of wildlife managers have read the same book. "Kool-aid"
Few are county boys or girls now days. All they learn is what's taught.
Those of us that have been out there all our lives have no trouble sorting out the BS.:)
 
As far as I know red foxes are not native to north America, they came with the English who wished to carry on their tradition of hunting them with hounds and terriers. They are no wide spread throughout our continent. Is there a push by these folks to eradicate these foxes? Not in California, they are protected from hunting because of concerns that native Sierra red foxes will be taken by un educated hunters. The simple solution to this is to not allow fox hunting in the Sierra national forest (the only home range of the Sierra red fox) if you see foxes in the valley you can be sure this is a non native, not a sierra fox.
 
The great irony of this is that our native grey foxes are not protected from hunting even though the greatly resemble federally protected endangered kit foxes and their ranges over lap in areas.:confused:
 
William Beebe, spent many years studying the ringneck subspecies (True Pheasant) in China.
We can't just pretend wild ringneck pheasants just spontaneously evolved from the plain prairie states. A great deal of hard work and effort went into getting them started in this country. We need to know about the genetics behind the wild pheasants.

Read the last paragraph on page 107 of his book "Monograph of the Pheasant" (paintings of Ringneck & subspecies page 100)
this part is about the Strauchi Pheasant (AKA Sichaun Pheasant):

http://books.google.com/books?id=cK...Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=strauchi pheasant&f=false

He basically said that the crowing and mating habits of the Strauchi pheasants are identical to the ringneck (P. c. torquatus). But note what he said about the male strauchi pheasant accompanying the hen in raising the chicks, and that the male vigorously defends the young.

It has been reported that the wild Bianchi Pheasant roosters (AKA afghan white winged pheasants) that crossed with ringnecks (same specie hens look alike) along the predator infested middle Rio Grande river valley in N.M., also defend their chicks and young against predators.

Wild Gambel's quail and wild S. Texas Bobwhite quail roosters also help the hens raise and defend the chicks in the summer.

With the increase in predators now days we need that old wild survival gene in our pheasants that will cause the roosters to help the hens defend the chicks from predators in the summer, to get better chick survival.

The Michigan DNR that had a large number of the Sichuan pheasants (Strauchi Pheasants) in the late 80' and 90'. Maybe they gave up on the Sichuan program too quickly.
They should have allowed private commercial game breeders a chance to raise and sell them commercially.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the link Preston1. Notice he mentions some Strachi/"Sichuan" pheasants have a white ring, and on others it's absent.

Being that some "sichuans" have a white ring makes it fall into the "ring neck" class of game birds here in the U.S.

This means Minnesota has the "ring neck" pheasant on the invasive species list.

Minnesota pheasant hunters; I'll keep on this issue to work on removing the pheasant from your invasive spices list, but, you may need to jump on this too.

I'll keep everyone informed as to any progress with this issue;)
 
oldandnew said:
You might want to take note of the policy of the USFW service. They are on a crusade to manage strictly for "native" species. This includes erradication of invasive species, (there's that word again), like russian olive, a species that allows for survival of pheasants in harsher areas of the west. Elimination of pheasants as a result of this activity is met by the retorical response, "are they native?" The implication obvious. There are others on this site who can give first hand testimony. Sounds like all these wildlife agencies went to the same seminar and drank the same Kool-aid.
Click to expand...

The russian and autumn olives are horrible plants. The state of Illinois has lost thousands of acres of public property to this scourge. It starts out nice and 10 years later the only thing capable of walking the property is a mouse or a D-9 Cat. I understand there are some areas where olives, japanese honeysuckle, russian buckthorn, myrtle, chinese tallow and other invasives do well and if you're in one of those places count yourself lucky. Where I deer hunt near work I too have noticed a big rooster spending a lot of time in those olive thickets (feeding?).
 
Preston1 said:
1pheas4, thanks for the follow through.

People all over the world love the the Ringneck pheasant (the True Pheasant) and all of their sub-species. The ringneck pheasant is a "class act" and should not be placed into the same boat as the starlings that you see lined up on a power line.

The people who care about wild pheasants in this country will have to achieve what the wild horse people have achieved. And that is having laws in place protecting the wild horse as a valuable part American western pioneering heritage:
http://www.blm.gov/nm/st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_burro.html

George Washington released pheasants on his farm at Mt. Vernon and Benjamin Franklin's nephew released pheasant on their farm in New Jersey.
That sounds like a part of American heritage to me.

We need something to separate the wild pheasant from being lumped into this non-native bag. This would get the "earthy" people that push the non-native attack (who never saw a wild pheasant flush in a wild field) off the backs of wild pheasants in this country.
Click to expand...
Don't forget brown trout and brook trout/chuckers in the west.
 
quail hound said:
As far as I know red foxes are not native to north America, they came with the English who wished to carry on their tradition of hunting them with hounds and terriers. They are no wide spread throughout our continent. Is there a push by these folks to eradicate these foxes? Not in California, they are protected from hunting because of concerns that native Sierra red foxes will be taken by un educated hunters. The simple solution to this is to not allow fox hunting in the Sierra national forest (the only home range of the Sierra red fox) if you see foxes in the valley you can be sure this is a non native, not a sierra fox.
Click to expand...
That is not true about the british introducing the red fox. The red fox were introduced to Australia but the red fox is indingenous to the entire northern hemisphere and arrived here during a glaciation period.
 
morrismike said:
That is not true about the british introducing the red fox. The red fox were introduced to Australia but the red fox is indingenous to the entire northern hemisphere and arrived here during a glaciation period.
Click to expand...

Ok, let me try again. According to Ca department of fish and game common red fox (vulpes vulpes) is a introduced species and not native to California. The only native species recognized in Ca are grey fox, kit fox, and the Sierra red fox.
 
morrismike said:
The russian and autumn olives are horrible plants. The state of Illinois has lost thousands of acres of public property to this scourge. It starts out nice and 10 years later the only thing capable of walking the property is a mouse or a D-9 Cat. I understand there are some areas where olives, japanese honeysuckle, russian buckthorn, myrtle, chinese tallow and other invasives do well and if you're in one of those places count yourself lucky. Where I deer hunt near work I too have noticed a big rooster spending a lot of time in those olive thickets (feeding?).
Click to expand...

Russian Olives are great wildlife habitat, WT deer and especially pheasants and Sharptail. Tremendous nutritious seed production, trees will hold the seed during the Winter.
Avian predators have a impossible time preying on game birds using the Russian Olives. when Coyotes and other ground predators attack the birds fly into the branches for safety.
Classifying the Russian Olive Invasive is NOT considering how valuable they are to game birds.
 
mnmthunting said:
Russian Olives are great wildlife habitat, WT deer and especially pheasants and Sharptail. Tremendous nutritious seed production, trees will hold the seed during the Winter.
Avian predators have a impossible time preying on game birds using the Russian Olives. when Coyotes and other ground predators attack the birds fly into the branches for safety.
Classifying the Russian Olive Invasive is NOT considering how valuable they are to game birds.
Click to expand...

I'd go so far as to say that without russian olive there might be very little game left in some areas. Like multiflora rose in Missouri, it can get to be to much of a good thing, but we had a lot more quail, rabbits, and songbirds when we had a lot of multiflora. Sometimes we forget the object of escape cover is for the game to actually escape, even if from us. Looks like incremental management could relieve the issues involved.
 
quail hound said:
Ok, let me try again. According to Ca department of fish and game common red fox (vulpes vulpes) is a introduced species and not native to California. The only native species recognized in Ca are grey fox, kit fox, and the Sierra red fox.
Click to expand...

https://r1.dfg.ca.gov/Portal/SierraNevadaRedFox/tabid/618/Default.aspx

You do realize that the sierra nevada red fox is simply a subspecies red fox. There are maybe 10 subspecies so saying they aren't native is simply semantics on the part of California.
 
mnmthunting said:
Russian Olives are great wildlife habitat, WT deer and especially pheasants and Sharptail. Tremendous nutritious seed production, trees will hold the seed during the Winter.
Avian predators have a impossible time preying on game birds using the Russian Olives. when Coyotes and other ground predators attack the birds fly into the branches for safety.
Classifying the Russian Olive Invasive is NOT considering how valuable they are to game birds.
Click to expand...

Ditto!!!!! You or any other predator will not chase game through these!!!! Woodies will Roost at ponds covered with Russian Olives as they over hang the water creating a unpenetratable Barrier!!! They also enjoy the seeds as do many other birds. I look like I was in a cat fight and lost whenever I venture into and through them!!
 
BleuBijou said:
Ditto!!!!! You or any other predator will not chase game through these!!!! Woodies will Roost at ponds covered with Russian Olives as they over hang the water creating a unpenetratable Barrier!!! They also enjoy the seeds as do many other birds. I look like I was in a cat fight and lost whenever I venture into and through them!!
Click to expand...

I'm sure the same things were said about kudzu in the beginning.
 
Kudzu was the attempt by railroads to eliminate right of way maintenence never had any wildlife benefit, was not presented that way,and in fact failed at the original pupose as well. Better comparison would be Kudzu to musk thisle. But at least musk thisle is preferred by goldfinches.
 
I would agree that having 1 acre patches of olives interspersed across 10s of thousands of acres of prime habitat would be a wonderful thing in the short term. The state of IL has been down this road and 20 years later what you end up with 10s of thousands of acres of olives and insufficient funds to pay the annual costs of grazeon PD control or a D9 with a deep plow to rip it up and start over. If there are areas that these olives can't completely take over then go for it and plant all you want.
 
Morrismike, What type of countryside has the Russian Olives taken over in your area. Can you give us more detail.
The only time I saw IL was going down the Interstate 70 mph.
 
mnmthunting said:
Morrismike, What type of countryside has the Russian Olives taken over in your area. Can you give us more detail.
The only time I saw IL was going down the Interstate 70 mph.
Click to expand...

One of my favorite dove/quail areas around Kindkaid Lake (Murphysboro) had a few acres of olives that was outstanding in the begining 5 years later a crew of Cats were needed to recover the area. There are olives on Pyramid State Lakes area and after a few years following reclamation they are posed to lose sections of territory and are not even going to attempt control. Hopefully the benefit from dove nesting and the cover will give us a few years before the entire area is a loss. The state of IL has a few plants on their craplist and leading the hit parade is invasive Phragmites, Reed Canary Grass, Johnson Grass, Olives (both types), Japanese Honeysuckle and Russian Buckthorn. It may be that IL is optimal habitat for these plants but our public areas just cannot withstand the loss of square miles of habitat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top