I think we all know how pathetic the public land hunting is for upland bird hunters in IL, but I never knew how truly bad it was. I was looking around on the IL DNR website and I see they publish an annual report of hunter trips and harvest on the 215 IL DNR managed hunting sites:
https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/hunting/Documents/IllinoisPublicHuntingAreasReport.2015.2016.pdf
Some take away numbers:
372,842 acres open for public hunting (hunted acres out of 477,000 total)
60,597 hunted acres on controlled pheasant hunting land (by my quick count)
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312,245 acres net of controlled hunting areas
29,968 total IL DNR land pheasant harvest
28,655 pheasants harvested on controlled pheasant areas (released birds)
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1,313 wild pheasants taken on public land
660 total quail harvest on public land (yes SIX HUNDRED sixty - not a typo)
So that is
1,973wild upland birds taken from
312,245 acres - 1 bird for every 158 acres managed by DNR. I almost can't believe these numbers they are so sad, but they are right there in black and white published by the ILDNR.
Has the upland bird hunter been completely forgotten by IL DNR?
Great numbers Trax! IF you'll allow me to try to give a Kansas answer to an Illinois question while working blind, I'd give it a try. I don't know the situation in Illinois, but in Kansas on my area what gets done is directly proportional to budget and manpower. Mix in work load and you have the basic framework. In Kansas, there is an average of 7,000 acres to be managed by each public land employee. I'm one of the lucky ones to be below that number where my area is 4,685 acres, BUT, I have a 144 acre fishing lake within those acres that in the busiest years will attract 90,000 man-days of visitation. Acres cost money and visitors cost money. Now, for perspective, when I moved here 24 years ago, my budget was $10,432 TOTAL. I had no money to hire help and limited equipment to do the work. If you understand that there are 11 marshes, over a dozen ponds, over 2 miles of canals, 3 miles of dams, 11 buildings, 3 toilets, 8 miles of roads, 1 shelterhouse, 6 rock jetties, 2 boat ramps, 2 boat docks, 50 miles of fence, 3 information shelters, 2 tractors, vehicles, equipment, etc to maintain with those $ and 1 full-time employee. Add to that the fact that this area, like most public areas in Kansas, is centered on a riparian corridor where you have a high level of hydrology that tends to accelerate plant succession, and controlling that trend is a major focus. The mistake many managers make is that they try to manage their area for things that it might not be best at producing. A manager can waste a lot of $ and time trying to get what isn't easy to get. Also, if you go through several managers in quick succession, the area tends to be "lost" in their learning curve. Back to focus: now, 24 years later, my budget for the wildlife area is $28,000 and for the lake $15,000. To put that in perspective, I have a tornado siren at the lake that alone cost $15,000. I didn't want it as maintaining a piece of equipment that's value equals my budget will result in it's passing down the road or other projects being put off in order to maintain it. Anyway, I could get lost in the magnitude of this talk, but you should be getting the idea that it is a mountain of a job with a mole hill of a budget and workforce that we work with. Consider burning goals of 1000 acres, 50 acres of food plots, noxious weed spraying for 4-6 different species, woody encroachment control (cedars, dogwood, locust, elm, Russian Olive), disturbance disking in the marshes, millet seeding wetlands, fire break working, and the list goes on.
So, what to do. Talk to your manager and see if several of you together could make a grass-roots effort and start projects that would significantly increase the area's ability to produce birds. Where fire is so much more effective than a chainsaw, maybe that could be a focus. Helping to spray woody invasion might be another option. Disturbance disking could be another. Tree girdling another. Just taking care of the trash pickup or parking lot mowing could free him or her up to do more habitat work. Anyone can fix fence, clean fire rings, clean toilets, paint buildings....... So much has to wait because of more important projects, if you adopt something, the manager will be free to do more with their time. Just my 2 cents!