Why do the wildlife folks cut every tree

B

Bob Peters

Well-known member
I found a secret new public land spot today. Looks juicy as can be. I talked to a guy that works the land near it, told me it's got more pheasants on it than San Francisco has bums. I noticed a tree row on it, or at least one that was removed. Last year I had a spot and forever pheasants came and cut all the trees off the terraces in the field. Usually there were lots of birds in those tree lines! I talked to a buddy today, and he told me two of his favorite spots used to have tree lines/ shelter belts, but they were removed by dnr. I realize owls 🦉 perch there and look for a pheasant dinner. But doesn't it help to leave some trees in a shelter belt for heavy winter snows?
 
Bob Peters said:
I found a secret new public land spot today. Looks juicy as can be. I talked to a guy that works the land near it, told me it's got more pheasants on it than San Francisco has bums. I noticed a tree row on it, or at least one that was removed. Last year I had a spot and forever pheasants came and cut all the trees off the terraces in the field. Usually there were lots of birds in those tree lines! I talked to a buddy today, and he told me two of his favorite spots used to have tree lines/ shelter belts, but they were removed by dnr. I realize owls 🦉 perch there and look for a pheasant dinner. But doesn't it help to leave some trees in a shelter belt for heavy winter snows?
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In Montana they are trying to get rid of all yhe Russian olives. Crazy.
 
In southern Minnesota they removed pretty much every tree on state owned land. I was told the reasoning was that trees weren’t natural on the prairie. 25 years ago they planted tree plots, 25 years later the cut them down.
 
Glock said:
In southern Minnesota they removed pretty much every tree on state owned land. I was told the reasoning was that trees weren’t natural on the prairie. 25 years ago they planted tree plots, 25 years later the cut them down.
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Lol I can think of one area near me that could use it ... gonna be completely cottonwood trees in short time . Dnr don't do shit bout it. Just mow sections the nice grass fields every year but the pieces that really need attention they seem to avoid ...
 
I am personally not a fan of most deciduous trees in my bird habitat. They are perch trees for all the raptors and owls and provide little habitat. I do have a row of white oaks sandwiched in a shelter belt, they are were planted in 2007 and produced acorns last year. The deer really got after those under the oak trees. I have also planted fruit trees, as they produce food for the wildlife. I do think some conifers are a good idea, maybe not a must have, but in bad weather, the birds need heavy cover to survive. Red cedars can really get away if not managed, so I completely understand removal of most of those and any deciduous trees.
 
I would argue that we as hunters often have a very skewed perception of what benefits the birds. For most hunters, we are really only out in the fields during the harsher months of the year (November - January), when much of the cover may be knocked down or under snow, etc. Hence, we tend to see birds in those "unkept" type of areas with lots of trees, etc., because that is where the cover is at that time.

I always used to associate birds with the thickest nastiest cover I could find (straight switch grass fields, cattails, trees, etc.)
While I still think those areas have value, I think we need to remember the other 8-9months of the year, when the birds to not need or want to use the thick cover with tall trees, etc. and instead prefer the "lighter" diverse cover.

Trees don't produce pheasants.. undisturbed prairie does. I'm generally of the mindset that adult birds will find a way to survive the winter (especially in most cases in Iowa) one way or another, and prefer to error on the side of less trees than more. Certainly this can vary based on a number of external factors like locations, adjacent cover, etc.
 
Yup I agree with you cyclone, in the cases I mentioned it was not big woodlots they knocked down, but generally just a thin strip of cedars. It's stuff I've seen lots of birds in even very early season. The point about cattails is well noted, as long as there's a sizeable slough around in the upper midwest, the birds have a winter home.
 
I would estimate that 90% of the habitat I hunt in Central MN has at least some trees. I am with cyclone on this one too. Better to error on the side of more than less (or none). Most trees take a LONG time to mature.

Also remember that this isn't just about the pheasant. Trees benefit other wildlife too. Wild turkeys roost in them if they have big, flat branches. And certainly deer benefit from them too, as does other wildlife.
 
Single-row tree belts are often death traps to pheasants. Avain predators above, fox walking the tree line corridor, and essentially zero protection from the elements.

Multi-row shelterbelts constructed of a mix of trees, bushes, and evergreens and positioned near winter food sources are a different story.
 
On the flip side - there is WAY to much shrubbery and trees on many of the WMAs associated with Prairie Chickens. Those areas need to be burned or grazed to promote more prairie chickens and it should help a bit on sharptrail hybridization since sharptails like brush more than the PC. Do not plant long bluestem on Prairie Chicken areas either. The PC prefer short grass prairie!

In Minnesota, I find that the further you move from the core pheasant WMAs, the less land management that is occurring. I have found some MN WMAs outside the core pheasant range full of thistle, poor grassland, over run with the wrong succession of bushes and trees ... especially single random cedar trees.

Federal WPAs used to be managed very well. Now they seem to be using less burning and more farming and grazing. There is a large WPA in ND where they farmed 80% of the land for 3 years. This WPA was essentially the only grass nesting cover in the township :rolleyes:
 
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Bob Peters said:
There's a lot more pheasants in mn than Kansas, unless you can hitch a ride with doc brown in the delorean.
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I've hunted both extensively. Kansas is at historic lows and MN still hasn't caught up, in part because...you guessed it, Kansas has a much more extensive range of relatively treeless prairie, and hence, more pheasants. I do agree that the best parts of Minnesota are going to have more abundant pheasants than the best parts of Kansas this year, and for at least some years to come, but that's not the same thing as having more pheasants.
 
I have taken down trees and have made the decision to have crews take out trees. In my cases, Removing the tree rows created larger blocks of undisturbed grasslands. What we lack in the prairies in unfragmented grasslands. Unfragmented grasslands produce more birds. The large type 4 wetlands with cattails provide the thermal cover to survive the winters. Often we as hunters confuse hunting habitat with nesting and survival habitat. Food plots and tree rows often provide hunter habitat. Putting pheasants back on the landscape is easy but really hard at the same time. Just plant grass and restore drained wetlands. That is all. But the push of drain tile and the almighty dollar makes those two items really tough to accomplish. The Russian olives and Chinese elms are really invasive. Someone correct me if I am wrong but Wyoming got the Russian olive listed as a noxious weed like Canada thistle.
 
cyclonenation10 said:
I would argue that we as hunters often have a very skewed perception of what benefits the birds. For most hunters, we are really only out in the fields during the harsher months of the year (November - January), when much of the cover may be knocked down or under snow, etc. Hence, we tend to see birds in those "unkept" type of areas with lots of trees, etc., because that is where the cover is at that time.

I always used to associate birds with the thickest nastiest cover I could find (straight switch grass fields, cattails, trees, etc.)
While I still think those areas have value, I think we need to remember the other 8-9months of the year, when the birds to not need or want to use the thick cover with tall trees, etc. and instead prefer the "lighter" diverse cover.

Trees don't produce pheasants.. undisturbed prairie does. I'm generally of the mindset that adult birds will find a way to survive the winter (especially in most cases in Iowa) one way or another, and prefer to error on the side of less trees than more. Certainly this can vary based on a number of external factors like locations, adjacent cover, etc.
Click to expand...
Those big owls kill a lot of pheasants at night.They live in trees.They use trees to kill birds.
 
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