Are you referring to the refuges? The refuges in Los Banos, China Island, Salt Slough, will always have birds because they provide year around upland habitat. the numbers will go up and down but there will be birds. Merced has one the largest continuous wetland acreage in the united states between the duck clubs and the refuges. They provide pretty good pheasant habitat providing year around cover for nesting hens. I used to take walks on the China Island unit year around until the DFG started locking up the refuge off season (jerks starting stealing copper from the well pumps). I would see pheasants year around. Where the pheasants are disappearing is on private land. The habitat is no longer there. Farming has become very intensive and even the efficiency has in recent years hurt the pheasant populatons. So has the conversion to permanent and specialty crops. Thirty years ago we hunted pheasants around West Madera and Chowchilla. There were pheasants everywhere. I remember seeing 100 roosters escaping out at the end of a cotton field. You couldn't go out the first day and not see birds. I drove down Road 4 and out to highway 99 a couple of years back. Most of the area is now either planted in almonds or grapes and everything on the ground is sprayed and clean. Pheasants can't survive in that environment. I talked to old man Carlucci a few years back. The family farms property in Dos Palos. They grew field corn that year. He said he hardly ever sees pheasants around Dos Palos/Los Banos anymore. He said a group went pheasant hunting on one of his properties and they caught one pheasant. He was really surprised. Really sad.
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