November 24, 2025 • 34 mins
This has a real shot at being the most unique wildlife conservation stories that we have in North American history. The ring-necked pheasant, a commonly hunted and celebrated bird, a bird that has it's own conservation organization, and a bird that is not native to the Americas. In most instance, when we hear or see the term "nonnative wildlife" it's tied to a negative outcome. However, pheasants have not only forged a path to being fully adopted into our wild landscapes with open arms, but they have also led the charge to several other positive outcomes for wildlife and wild habitats. They are without a doubt our most beloved exotic game bird.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
conserving both. Big shout out to aex hunt for their
support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. On
this episode, we're gonna learn all about what I refer
to as the most beloved non native wildlife that we
(00:22):
have in the entire country, so beloved and accepted in fact,
that many folks don't even realize that they're not native.
It's time that we learn about the crazy history and
widespread ecological impacts of the ring necked pheasant. I can
promise you this by the end of this episode, whether
you're a diehard pheasant hunter, a first timer, or even
(00:43):
if you're someone who doesn't have interest in hunting pheasants,
you'll never be able to think of them the same way. Again,
let's get into it. It's the second week of November,
(01:04):
and while my phone is steadily going off in my
pocket with deer activity and hunt updates for my friends
scattered across the country, I'm walking across a wind whipped
North Dakota prairie to a small pocket of cattails that
I spotted.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
On my onyx map.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
When we approach the edge of the cattails, I give
my dog Knocks the signal to hunt, and he tears
off into the thick cover with his nose to the ground.
He knows what to do from here. After walking about
sixty yards, while constantly keeping an eye on my dog,
I notice that all of a sudden, he has an
uptick in enthusiasm. His tail starts wagging harder and faster.
(01:40):
His movements are much more quick and deliberate. I know
all too well what this means. He smells a bird,
and now he's trying to find it and flush it.
I tighten my hands around my shotgun and I start
scanning back and forth from the cover to Knox, trying
to catch the first sign of a flushing pheasant. This
behavior goes on for a couple of yards and second
(02:00):
until finally two rooster pheasants flush out of the edge
of the cattails. I raised my gun and I fired
two shots. The first one was all air and no feathers.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
That's no good.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
The second shot, however, found its mark, and now I'm
quickly walking that direction. As I watched Knox run over
and scoop the pheasant up off the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Good boy knocks, good boy. That is how it's sounding
right there.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Good night, good boy. So the key here is that
was a really big piece of plots, and the pheasant
cover on it is limited.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So if you were actually with a.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Group of folks, a lot of you know, two, three,
four guys, would probably drive past this and go it's
not worth us stopping. But when you just have one
guy and one dog, those little pieces of isolated cover
are actually exactly what we are looking for because it's.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
A lot easier working that way. And Knox was all
over those.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
That was awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Hopefully you heard me say in there that I was
hunting on a big piece of plots. Plots stands for
private land open to sportsmen, a walk in access program
that you can see in both North and South Dakota.
It's a really cool program and one of the many
positive effects that pheasants have on a landscape, which we're
going to dive into much more detail on, but before that,
we need to hear one more hunt. What direction would
(03:31):
you go Goitch? Now, I'm in South Dakota and once
again I'm walking across a prairie with my dog. Only
this time, I have my wife Lacy hunting with me.
Lacy's first time pheasant hunting was last year in twenty
twenty four, and she liked it, so in November of
twenty twenty five, she wanted to give it another go.
This time, instead of hunting plots, we're hunting a piece
(03:53):
of path property PAT, which stands for public Access to
habitat other public hunting access program brought about in part
by the presence of pheasants on our landscape. We're gonna
learn a lot more about this stuff later, but it's
important we get to experience this part of it. First.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
There was hey, yeah, stay ready, stay ready, Knox has it.
Can remember up.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Knox.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Here, nice Lacy, nice public land pheasants. They are not
a walk in the park, but we stuck with it
and managed to kill a few. Makes you wish she
(04:44):
had one more day. When you hear all that, well,
I think Lacey needs a foot massage. I think no,
I think Knox needs some water and some food and uh.
But yeah, hopefully all enjoyed tagging along. We've walked a
lot and managed to have a little bit of success.
(05:06):
So yeah, proud of you, Thank you, you did good.
Thanks for taking me proud of you too, man.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
That's a good boy.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Man.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Those are some fun times. And if an ounce of
the fun that I have on these trips make it
through the speakers and into your ear drums, I'll be satisfied.
But as always, let's zoom out on this. So far,
all we've covered is that pheasants are non native wildlife,
and hopefully from the hunt audio y'all just heard, you've
gathered that they are right smart, fun to go and hunt.
(05:40):
But there's a much much bigger story here, one that
I dare say will leave you rather mind blowing at
the history of it and the vast effects that this
bird has made on the North American landscape. However, I'm
not going to be the one to tell it to you.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
My name is Jared Wickland, Director of Communications for Pheasants
Forever and Quail Forever on a national level, so I
oversee all of our press releases, story information you know
that's going on on our website and to news sources.
I do a lot of podcasts and interviews. I work
on National Pheasant Fest and Quail Classics, sort of our
(06:16):
big annual convention that travels around the country. Do a
lot of different things to support our wildlife habitat conservation
work and basically tell the story of our volunteers at
an organization that sort of rose from the ashes in
nineteen eighty two when a group of peasant owners saw
the connection between upland habitat loss and declining pheasant populations
(06:37):
and an organization was needed, and that's how Pheasants Forever
was formed, and sort of sort of the same way
for Quail Forever in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Jared is going to be the perfect person to share
this crazy pheasant story with us. I want to kick
this thing off by learning about how a bird that
originally existed in Asia wound up in North America.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
You know, the history of pheasant goes really far back,
and actually some of the earliest attempts to introduce pheasants
were actually in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
For instance, there were accounts.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Of George Washington introducing multiple species at his Mount Vernon estate,
which I think is pretty cool. But the first successful
attempt was the release of wildcaught birds in the late
eighteen hundreds. It was in eighteen eighty one in the
will Lammette Valley of Oregon by a guy named Judge
Owen Denny. At that time, he was the Consul General
(07:31):
in Shanghai, which was like the top diplomatic post in
China from the United States. And after he introduced pheasants.
It was about ten years later, really late eighteen hundreds.
Eighteen ninety two I think was the date when Oregon
held its first pheasants season.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And in that decade or so after.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Releasing birds, and they were released into a landscape with
a lot of grass, a lot of small grains. At
the time, they harvested fifty thousand pheasants that first year.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I'm gonna let Jared get back to his story, but
I have to spend a little bit of time on
this first key fact because I find it so fascinating.
Oh and Denny, a man appointed to the US consul
in the eighteen seventy seven in Tinging, China, would eventually
become Console General. Denny became fascinated with pheasants, wild pheasants
that he saw and had personal experience with while in China,
(08:22):
and that hatched the idea that they may do well
in Oregon. And after two attempts of trapping wild pheasants
in China, shipping them across the Pacific. Twenty nine live
wild birds made it safely to Portland, Oregon, and were
released onto his brother's farm in Lynn County. They had
immediate help from the state legislator by having them protected
(08:42):
from harvest for ten years. It is said that they
took to the area so fast that they became quote pests,
And there's an excerpt from a newspaper article written by
a man named Don Holm that says, indeed, they became
pests that drove off farmyard roosters, they ate their grain,
and even made off with their hens. Just think about
that for a minute. A guy ends up appointed to
(09:05):
a position in China. He catches a fascination for these birds,
and while he's over there, he decides, Hey, those may
do well at my brother's farm, so he live traps them,
puts them on a boat, ships them across the ocean.
Twenty nine, just twenty nine of them make it back
to Oregon, and somehow, some way that leads to a
pheasant population so healthy that my wife and I can
(09:25):
go and hunt them on publicly accessible ground in the
Dakotas and find success. Crazy. Okay, I'll shut up, now
back to you.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Jared, the birds just took to the landscape at the time,
which was a lot of grass and small greens, which
pheasants at that time really took to. So after they
had their first pheasant season, there was a lot of
wildcot pheasants, so they call them that sort of f
one generation where people were taking them and distributing to
other landscapes throughout the United States, like the South Dakota's,
(09:56):
the Minnesota's. Some of those and other introductions followed over
the next couple decades, and by the nineteen thirties, pheasants
were pretty darn near established coast to coast across America,
like states like Pennsylvania, New York, some of these eastern
states that used to have this very large culture of
pheasant hunting. They've lost so much grass in that time
(10:18):
that you know, those populations aren't what they once were.
But you've got states out east that were also shooting
over a million birds per year for a lot of
years in a row. So it's like this cultural phenomenon.
I think that once pheasants took hold, they went from
a non native introduced species to this iconic form of
(10:41):
wildlife that spread throughout the Western States. The Great Plains
and then through the Eastern Coast as well.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Iconic form of wildlife. I want to ask Jared more
about that, but first there's one small easter egg of
information in there that I just can't let slide by.
If you recall, Jared said that after the first successful
pheasant hunt in eighteen ninety two, it became a popular
practice to catch wild pheasants and release them into other
areas of the country, such as the Dakotas and Minnesota,
(11:10):
and in the following years this led to them being
introduced or at least attempted to being introduced in the
rest of the country. So let's think back to the
Fanny Cook episode, one of my favorite episodes that we've
done so far. You should go back and listen to
it if you haven't already. In Miss Cook's episode, we
make mention of a game status report that was written
by Auto Loophold in nineteen twenty nine about the state
(11:34):
of Mississippi, and in that report, Loophold says, quote, pheasants
have been tried but so far failed, it's likely not
possible to introduce them. So when Jared says that they
had been attempted across much of the country. He means it.
I mean, think about it. When you think about pheasant
country today, does Mississippi come to anyone's mind. My guess
(11:55):
would be no, But hey, we tried.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Even though it's not that far off where you know,
you've got wild pheasant populations that go all the way
down you know, Oklahoma, Texas. I mean as far as
Mississippi goes, you're not that far off base from where
wild populations currently have taken hold. There's information out there
talking about like having enough calcium and other minerals in
(12:21):
the dirt that allows for pheasant eggs to form the
right way. There's certain areas of the country where pheasants
do really well in other areas where they struggle, and
sometimes soil types can play into that and the amount
of nutrients that they have in order for pheasant eggs
to make it, which I find a little bit interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Interesting stuff, Jared, But now I want to focus in
on that iconic form of wildlife title that the pheasants
have earned. Most commonly, wildlife species don't just get handed
that title. They have to do something to earn it.
And what I learned in the making of this episode
is that pheasants did quite a few things to earn
that title.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
The Ring Neck Pheasant is the official state of South Dakota.
You ever seen the South Dakota Quarter at All Lake. Yeah,
So the back of the quarter is a rooster pheasant
that is flying over Mount Rushmore. Like they love their
pheasants so much and revere it so much that they
minted it on the back of their state quarter, which
I think is pretty cool. I always thought it would
(13:19):
be awesome if the eyes of you know, Mount Rushmore
and the presidents were sort of looking up, you know,
and shouting rooster while that thing's going over. But take
a look at some quarters sometime as you're going through
a change bucket in your house, and just look for this.
Look for the South Dakota Quarter. I think it speaks
to pheasant hunters and the culture, especially in a place
like the pheasant capital of South Dakota. But I think
(13:41):
one of the most fascinating stories surrounding the Ring Neck
Pheasant is their place in American history as part of
World War Two, particularly in a place like South Dakota.
In nineteen forty three, at the height of the war,
the Red Cross and the United Service organizations canteen at
the Milwaukee Deepo in Aberdeen had a well known slogan
(14:03):
and at that time it was a world standout for
a handout. They offered free launch and hospitality to more
than a half million servicemen and women during nearly three
years of operation during World War Two. In December of
nineteen forty three, farmers brought pheasants to the canteen workers
and the pheasant salad sandwich became a significant part of
(14:26):
the menu. And that's kind of where this pheasant sandwich
has kicked off from. It's finally chopped cooked pheasant, hard
boiled eggs are in there, I believe, onion, few other things.
But there were so many pheasants in South Dakota at
that time that pheasant hunts were organized to keep that
canteen supplied with South Dakota State bird and they were
(14:49):
really plentiful at that time. In nineteen forty three, they
had a pre hunt population of eleven million birds, which
is sort of mind blowing considering right now you think
that the population I think they're looking at is sixteen
to eighteen million nationwide, and eleven million pheasants in nineteen
forty three just in South Dakota. So for those that
(15:09):
might still travel to the state to take part in
their heritage and their culture of peasant hunting, the Aberdeen
Convention and Visitors Bureau actually still has pheasant sandwiches made
and for those that are coming in at the airport,
the depot I think has turned more into sort of
a historical site now about those pheasant sandwiches are still
still handed out. So I thought that's kind of a
(15:30):
cool place in American history in World War Two, given
pheasant sandwiches the servicemen.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And when that's a fantastic story.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Yeah, it's pretty neat, great and they're delicious too.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I've had them before.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
We've been up there for you know, media events surrounding
sort of the some of the public land stuff that
we've done, and a couple of the lunches we've had
up there. They really like to showcase the pheasant salad sandwiches,
which which is awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Another great another great way to make them.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, So I would say, and this is this is
my opinion, and I'm just talking about North American wildlife
fishery stuff. Most of the time when you hear the
term non native wildlife, whether they're talking about a bird,
whether they're talking about a mammal, whether they're talking about
a fish, it's brought up with a negative connotation. Now
(16:22):
take that a step even further. Most of the time,
when you hear non native wildlife and they're being introduced
somewhere or they're being you know, transplanted from one area
to another, even more so skewed towards that's normally brought
about with a negative connotation. This is like an obvious
example here, but like wild hogs, a non native, very
(16:45):
destructive wildlife. We know they're destructive to this day. Wildlife
departments have crazy issues with folks trying to sneak around
and live haul them and turn them loose because they
want to hunt them.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yep, the world.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's it's so like fascinating to me that you have
a bird in a ring neck pheasant that took hold
in much of the North American landscape and was not
only accepted into our culture, but so much so that
it's the state bird of South Dakota. That it's on
a quarter that you know you're getting fed pheasant sandwiches
(17:24):
when you get off an air, Like, like, how does
a bird that is not a native wildlife. How does
it embed itself so well into our culture that it's like, yeah,
we know you're not native, but come right in, you're
you're one of us. Now, Like, how did how did
that happen?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Before I answer that question, first and foremost, I want
to thank you for referring to the ring neck pheasant
as a non native species as opposed to invasive. We
get a lot of people that come on certain feeds
or podcasts, social media in general and refer to the
pheasant as invasive, and like you said, that that negative connotation,
(17:58):
like they're having a negative impact on the landscape, and
that's simply not true. I mean, you look at a
place like South Dakota. They've got multi hundred dollars or
million dollar industry built around pheasants in the farm bill
now and the conservation reserve program that pays landowners to
put grass on the landscape or conserve resources. I think
(18:18):
the pheasant and plenty of other species out there, but
the pheasant is one of them that basically has helped
with putting sort of that wildlife distinction into the farm bill.
As far as grass, it's like this strategic grassland reserve,
so there are non native species, they're not invasive, and
they've become sort of this icon of the Midwest and
Great Plains. And I'll throw this out there and people
(18:40):
can disagree with me, but to some degree, pheasants have
become a colorful indicator of environmental health across the region.
When we have a lot of buffers and we have
a lot of grass on the landscape, when we have
good weather too, that makes a ton of pheasants and
other wildlife. They promote pollinators and a lot of the
work that we do so on pollinators, which makes for
(19:02):
wonderful pheasant habitat. It creates clean water, creates clean air.
There's a lot of environmental benefits that come with managing
for the ring neck pheasant. So yeah, to your point,
I'm fine calling them sort of this non non native
species invasive. You can throw that out. I think that's garbage.
But they've really turned into this icon of the Midwest
(19:24):
and Great Plains. And one of the reasons why they're
called the king of game birds.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Allow me to break down for you what I think
is a fast track for gaining the title of iconic wildlife.
Number one proved to be of high cultural value Pheasants
accomplished this with the many hunting opportunities they created, as
well as a few standout instances like the pheasant sandwich
story that took place during World War two Number two,
(19:53):
prove that your existence on the landscape is beneficial both
for you, for humans, for other wildlife species, and for
wildlife habitats. Pheasants have done this in a lot of ways.
One of the most notable ways is becoming so beloved
that they made it into the farm built talk. And lastly,
and this one is quite a feat, but becomes so
popular that you have a large conservation organization built completely
(20:17):
around you. Let's pause and think about this one for
a minute. Out of all the big conservation organizations out
there that you know, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited,
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, for example, all of which I'm
a big supporter of, but those are all native wildlife.
How many conservation organizations built around non native wildlife? Can
(20:40):
you list off? You ever hear of a wild Hog
Forever Federation? If you do, let me know, I mean seriously,
let me know, because someone would need to put a
stop to that. But for real, think about that. It's
quite a feat accomplished by a small, brightly colored Asian bird,
right you.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Know, from the beginning of time when Pheasants Forever was
created in nineteen eighty two and Dennis and Anderson at
the time, who still writes for the Minnesota Star Tribune
right now, basically wrote an article talking about how, you know,
we've lost a lot of habitat on the landscape, and
he begged the question, have you ever seen a pheasant
or other wildlife freeze to death on the side of
the road during a harsh winter when there's there's no
(21:19):
habitat available?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And that's really sort of what.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Sparked this generation of pheasant hunters and creating Pheasants Forever
and our volunteers to basically go out and do good
things for the bird, whether it's habitat, whether it's public
access which inevitably leads to habitat. There's a lot of
different birds. I think that you can work a bird
dog on pheasant to me is just sort of the
(21:44):
upper eschelon of why people follow a bird dog around especially,
and the landscapes that they live into are so varying.
Everything from you know, we talked about Northeast Iowa at
the beginning of this and and sort of that driftless
region to sort of these stark, rolling landscapes of just grass.
As far as you can see, they live in tall
grass prairie, mixed grass prairie, and to some degree, pheasants
(22:08):
can still be found from coast to coasts, which is
why makes them such valuable wildlife for folks to go
out and chase.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
If y'all ever heard the phrase canary in the coal mine,
if you haven't, it basically means an indicator for danger
or failure. Well, I think we should coin our own
from now on. Instead of saying canary in the coal mine,
I'm gonna say pheasant on the roadside, which honestly wouldn't
really work, because you see pheasants standing on roadsides even
in areas where there is good habitat. But the point
(22:36):
I'm attempting to make here is that pheasants became a
country wide indicator for habitat health, which is one of
the main reasons Pheasants Forever was formed, and also one
of the reasons Pheasants Forever and Quel Forever is known
as the Habitat Organization. And the beauty of that is
even if an individual has a singular goal of creating
more habitats for pheasants, that has compounding effects. Remember the
(23:00):
ecological maxim we learned a few episodes back. You can
never just do one thing. Actions have consequences and ripple effects,
and creating more habitats for pheasants in turn creates more
habitats and recreational opportunities for a lot of other things.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Going back to our history in nineteen eighty two, that
group of pheasant hunters saw the connection between upland habitat
loss and declining pheasant populations, decided that an organization was needed,
and that's how Pheasants Forever was formed. In two thousand
and five, Quail Forever sort of followed that model as
well due to declining numbers, and Pheasants Forever and Quil
Forever together quickly garnered its reputation as the Habitat Organization.
(23:42):
And that's a tagline that we still use today. I
use it just about every day in the writing that
I do because I love it so much. But you know,
our mission is conserve pheasants, quail another wildlife through habitat improvements,
public access education, and conservation advocacy. And you know, I
think everybody's familiar with all the wonderful conservation groups out there,
the Ducks and Limited, the National Wild Turkey Federation's Rocky
(24:04):
Mountain Elk Foundation, all these other ones, and we work
with a lot of them on combined projects. But Pheasants
Forever and quil Forever, I think is unique and that
one hundred percent of the decision making control over the
funds raised by local volunteers. So we've got seven hundred
and sixty five chapters right now throughout the United States
(24:24):
in every state right now, which is pretty cool. But
the decision of how to use those funds stays local
with the chapter, so they use those for wildlife habitat
conservation efforts in their own communities. And then we also
have a number of different awesome programs and initiatives, whether
it's the advocacy side and supporting what we do in Washington,
(24:44):
DC because the stroke of a pen can change things there,
and as people know, in a very short amount of time,
to our path program, which is our public Access to
Habitat program that was formed a year and a half
ago after some trial and error, and that program has
really grown to be sort of a mainstay we still
do land acquisitions in our Build a Wildlife Area program.
(25:06):
We've conserved two hundred and forty three thousand acres of
permanent land acquisition here since nineteen eighty two, which is awesome.
If you hunt the outside of those just the outside
of those acres would take you all the way from
mid Canada down through mid Mexico. But the New PATH
program is unique in that we provide an extra incentive
to landowners that maybe want to get into some type
(25:28):
of conservation reserve program enrollment. But that extra incentive is
used for walk and access. We combine it with state
access programs and we've had a lot of success doing it.
In the last year and a half now we've got
about one hundred and thirty thousand extra acres on the
landscape for bird hunters and their bird dogs to roam,
to go out and enjoy and to grow wildlife. And
(25:50):
in a lot of cases, every single contract that we
have through Path protects that property for you know, whether
it's five years or ten years that the landowner sign
signs up for. In most cases there's restrictions on what
a landowner can do on those acres. It is meant
so that when somebody shows up to a path enrollment
right now, you're not showing up to something that's been
(26:14):
hate or grazed off. You're showing up to an awesome
wildlife factory that is going to have.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Birds on it when you hunt it.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
And we've seen that time and time again from people
that have anecdotal stories like, Wow, this is an awesome
program and I'm glad I found this path signed on
this property.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
The final point that I want to point out with
Pheasants is in most other circles and this is just
more anecdotal than like fact based or science history. You
could take turkeys, you could take deer, ducks, you could
you could take almost any other you know, game that
we hunt. You could take it all the way down
to like the single or individual level, where guys are like, yeah,
(26:55):
I'm not telling you where I'm going, or you take
it to the state level and everyone's like, yeah, go
hunt turkeys deer, just don't come to my state and
do it, or man, we've got too many non residents.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And I'm not like, again, I'm not down on the
other side of it by any means, because like Lord knows,
I would probably give you my bank account information before
I told you where my turkey, you know, my turkey
spots were. But peasant hunting might be the most welcoming
style of hunting that I've ever come in contact with.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
I think you're onto something there. There's like this community
aspect of peasant Now. I love going out by myself
and just my bird dog and tracking down a wily
rooster and you know, having it retrieved a hand, that's awesome.
But there's a community aspect of hunting with friends, hunting
with family. We just had a lot of openers here
(27:49):
the past couple of weeks. This past weekend was Iowa,
which I was set to shoot upwards of seven hundred
and fifty thousand roosters this year. It's going to be
their best, probably their best pheasant season in the past
twenty five years. You know, South Dakota, Minnesota both had
wonderful winters. They had huge increases in birds and sort
of those opening day photos that you see if people
(28:09):
people smiling, you know, the kids holding roosters, and a
lot of limits were taken and that's not necessarily what
it's about. But in modern day glory days, I think
kind of we're going through a little bit of that
right now. The last time we saw that was probably
around two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, before
the farm bill flipped over and we lost a lot
of acres in a lot of states. I mean, those
(28:31):
were modern day highs at that time that were right
in line with how many acres of grass were on
the landscape. We're seeing some good things this year, and
you know, access is a fine line. I think a
lot of these states are inviting South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa,
I mean, Kansas, Nebraska. I mean, everybody wants you to
come out and experience pheasant hunting or quail hunting or
(28:53):
any type of upland hunting in those states. And you know,
I take a little bit of crap from time to
time as the PR guy, I really like to talk
about our access successes as well, Like when we do
a thousand acre land acquisition, I want.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
People to know about it.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
But then there's also that blowback, right like, oh, looks
like you guys screwed that one up, you know, and
it's like, well, not really, it's permanently protected. There's always
gonna be pheasants there. Like here's here's a for instance,
for you, we just did a path enrollment in South
Dakota that was thirty two thousand acres. You can find
it pretty easy using Onyx and some of those layers,
(29:30):
but like thirty two thousand acres, like you just aren't
gonna go out there with five six guys and walk
that in a day or two days or two weeks.
Like we're trying to enroll extremely large parcels. And when
we do things like that, I really like to sort
of tell the story like, Hey, this is Pheasants Forever,
our local chapters and willing landowners providing access for you
(29:51):
to go out and enjoy the spaces where bird dogs
love to roam, and we're gonna continue doing those types
of things. But I think you're right. For the most part.
It's a little bit different and deer hunting or turkey hunting,
where people are like, hey, come on out, we've got
this public land and it's full of birds this year
for your enjoyment.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Exactly, but it with like presence, it's like come on man, yeah,
I'll share. It's a completely different vibe and it's so
interesting to me, like that this bird has this bird
is an outlier in so many ways, Like it's gotten
adopted by our country pretty much, and it conjures up
(30:28):
like a completely different attitude within its hunting community that
we really don't see anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
And you know, I think Pheasants Forever and Coil Forever
as a conservation group is unique right now in that
we're utilizing, we're updating our strategic plan. We're using the
most up to date science that's out there to determine, like, hey,
if we're going to hold on to these pheasant populations
and grow them in these certain areas, Like where where
are we seeing the biggest increases? Why are we seeing
(30:55):
those increases? You know, when we put public lands on
the landscape, it's not like, oh, thirty acres, let's go
out and buy it. It's strategic, right We're creating complexes
and big areas that can produce a lot of wildlife.
And you pointed to it earlier, it's not just pheasants.
Like the things that we do from a grassland standpoint
are wonderful for pollinators, for songbirds. Huge betting areas for
(31:19):
one of my favorite things to do, especially in Northeast Iowa.
When I was going to school, there was deer hunt
huge grasslands surrounded by woods, and just like trying to
figure out the puzzle of like where these deer are traveling,
like they're gonna go and travel through, you know, five
six foot tall indian grass or big blue stem, and
trying to sort of figure out that puzzle. And then
(31:41):
when it all comes together and you go out and
arrow a big one, it's gratifying to figure that out
and know that, like, hey, those grasslands are there for.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
A reason and all wildlife are using them. It's not
just not just upland birds.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
If y'all have followed along with this show since the beginning,
then you probably know by now that one of the
main factors that we focus on is human impact on
wildlife and wild places. And to be honest, most of
the time when we talk about this, we're talking about
negative impacts, not because we go looking for the negatives,
but rather it just seems to be more skewed that direction.
(32:18):
That's why I want to make sure that whenever we
come across positive human impact on wildlife, by Golly, we
celebrate it because it's worth celebrating. More wildlife and more
wildlife habitat is good for everything and everyone hard, stop
big facts, the simple truth. And although there's complexity when
(32:38):
we start talking about the effects of non native wildlife
on the North American landscape, the ring necked pheasant is
in a class all its own. I want to give
Jared a chance to wrap up this conversation with some
final thoughts before we close this out.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Benefit of wildlife, I think it's benefited rural communities as well,
farmers and ranchers. I mean a lot of the work
that we do, a ton of public lands work. For
as much public lands work as we do, we've got
a whole contingent of biologists that work on private lands,
which is where a lot of pheasants and other wildlife
are made in this country. And the grass that we
(33:13):
help landowners put down, I mean those are strategic reserves
not just for wildlife, but for the cattle industry as
well when we do have bad years and years of droughts.
So there's a saying out there like what's good for
the bird is good for the herd, and it's absolutely true.
We can grow wildlife and have all the cattle and
corn and things that we want while still mass producing
(33:34):
wildlife and having clean water and environmental services. That you know,
all Americans enjoy, which I think is really important.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I want to thank all of you for listening to
Backwoods University as well as Bear Grease in this country life.
It means a whole lot to all of us. If
you liked this episode, share it with somebody this week. Heck,
here's a good idea. Share it with the last person
you saw this's a pheasant. I'm sure they'll appreciate the
sentiment and stick around, because if this podcast was a
pheasant hunt, we've got a few in the vest. But
(34:07):
the dog just started acting Birdie again. There's a whole
lot more on the way.
Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
conserving both. Big shout out to aex hunt for their
support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle. On
this episode, we're gonna learn all about what I refer
to as the most beloved non native wildlife that we
(00:22):
have in the entire country, so beloved and accepted in fact,
that many folks don't even realize that they're not native.
It's time that we learn about the crazy history and
widespread ecological impacts of the ring necked pheasant. I can
promise you this by the end of this episode, whether
you're a diehard pheasant hunter, a first timer, or even
(00:43):
if you're someone who doesn't have interest in hunting pheasants,
you'll never be able to think of them the same way. Again,
let's get into it. It's the second week of November,
(01:04):
and while my phone is steadily going off in my
pocket with deer activity and hunt updates for my friends
scattered across the country, I'm walking across a wind whipped
North Dakota prairie to a small pocket of cattails that
I spotted.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
On my onyx map.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
When we approach the edge of the cattails, I give
my dog Knocks the signal to hunt, and he tears
off into the thick cover with his nose to the ground.
He knows what to do from here. After walking about
sixty yards, while constantly keeping an eye on my dog,
I notice that all of a sudden, he has an
uptick in enthusiasm. His tail starts wagging harder and faster.
(01:40):
His movements are much more quick and deliberate. I know
all too well what this means. He smells a bird,
and now he's trying to find it and flush it.
I tighten my hands around my shotgun and I start
scanning back and forth from the cover to Knox, trying
to catch the first sign of a flushing pheasant. This
behavior goes on for a couple of yards and second
(02:00):
until finally two rooster pheasants flush out of the edge
of the cattails. I raised my gun and I fired
two shots. The first one was all air and no feathers.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
That's no good.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
The second shot, however, found its mark, and now I'm
quickly walking that direction. As I watched Knox run over
and scoop the pheasant up off the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Good boy knocks, good boy. That is how it's sounding
right there.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Good night, good boy. So the key here is that
was a really big piece of plots, and the pheasant
cover on it is limited.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So if you were actually with a.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Group of folks, a lot of you know, two, three,
four guys, would probably drive past this and go it's
not worth us stopping. But when you just have one
guy and one dog, those little pieces of isolated cover
are actually exactly what we are looking for because it's.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
A lot easier working that way. And Knox was all
over those.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
That was awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Hopefully you heard me say in there that I was
hunting on a big piece of plots. Plots stands for
private land open to sportsmen, a walk in access program
that you can see in both North and South Dakota.
It's a really cool program and one of the many
positive effects that pheasants have on a landscape, which we're
going to dive into much more detail on, but before that,
we need to hear one more hunt. What direction would
(03:31):
you go Goitch? Now, I'm in South Dakota and once
again I'm walking across a prairie with my dog. Only
this time, I have my wife Lacy hunting with me.
Lacy's first time pheasant hunting was last year in twenty
twenty four, and she liked it, so in November of
twenty twenty five, she wanted to give it another go.
This time, instead of hunting plots, we're hunting a piece
(03:53):
of path property PAT, which stands for public Access to
habitat other public hunting access program brought about in part
by the presence of pheasants on our landscape. We're gonna
learn a lot more about this stuff later, but it's
important we get to experience this part of it. First.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
There was hey, yeah, stay ready, stay ready, Knox has it.
Can remember up.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Knox.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Here, nice Lacy, nice public land pheasants. They are not
a walk in the park, but we stuck with it
and managed to kill a few. Makes you wish she
(04:44):
had one more day. When you hear all that, well,
I think Lacey needs a foot massage. I think no,
I think Knox needs some water and some food and uh.
But yeah, hopefully all enjoyed tagging along. We've walked a
lot and managed to have a little bit of success.
(05:06):
So yeah, proud of you, Thank you, you did good.
Thanks for taking me proud of you too, man.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
That's a good boy.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Man.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Those are some fun times. And if an ounce of
the fun that I have on these trips make it
through the speakers and into your ear drums, I'll be satisfied.
But as always, let's zoom out on this. So far,
all we've covered is that pheasants are non native wildlife,
and hopefully from the hunt audio y'all just heard, you've
gathered that they are right smart, fun to go and hunt.
(05:40):
But there's a much much bigger story here, one that
I dare say will leave you rather mind blowing at
the history of it and the vast effects that this
bird has made on the North American landscape. However, I'm
not going to be the one to tell it to you.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
My name is Jared Wickland, Director of Communications for Pheasants
Forever and Quail Forever on a national level, so I
oversee all of our press releases, story information you know
that's going on on our website and to news sources.
I do a lot of podcasts and interviews. I work
on National Pheasant Fest and Quail Classics, sort of our
(06:16):
big annual convention that travels around the country. Do a
lot of different things to support our wildlife habitat conservation
work and basically tell the story of our volunteers at
an organization that sort of rose from the ashes in
nineteen eighty two when a group of peasant owners saw
the connection between upland habitat loss and declining pheasant populations
(06:37):
and an organization was needed, and that's how Pheasants Forever
was formed, and sort of sort of the same way
for Quail Forever in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Jared is going to be the perfect person to share
this crazy pheasant story with us. I want to kick
this thing off by learning about how a bird that
originally existed in Asia wound up in North America.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
You know, the history of pheasant goes really far back,
and actually some of the earliest attempts to introduce pheasants
were actually in the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
For instance, there were accounts.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Of George Washington introducing multiple species at his Mount Vernon estate,
which I think is pretty cool. But the first successful
attempt was the release of wildcaught birds in the late
eighteen hundreds. It was in eighteen eighty one in the
will Lammette Valley of Oregon by a guy named Judge
Owen Denny. At that time, he was the Consul General
(07:31):
in Shanghai, which was like the top diplomatic post in
China from the United States. And after he introduced pheasants.
It was about ten years later, really late eighteen hundreds.
Eighteen ninety two I think was the date when Oregon
held its first pheasants season.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
And in that decade or so after.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Releasing birds, and they were released into a landscape with
a lot of grass, a lot of small grains. At
the time, they harvested fifty thousand pheasants that first year.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I'm gonna let Jared get back to his story, but
I have to spend a little bit of time on
this first key fact because I find it so fascinating.
Oh and Denny, a man appointed to the US consul
in the eighteen seventy seven in Tinging, China, would eventually
become Console General. Denny became fascinated with pheasants, wild pheasants
that he saw and had personal experience with while in China,
(08:22):
and that hatched the idea that they may do well
in Oregon. And after two attempts of trapping wild pheasants
in China, shipping them across the Pacific. Twenty nine live
wild birds made it safely to Portland, Oregon, and were
released onto his brother's farm in Lynn County. They had
immediate help from the state legislator by having them protected
(08:42):
from harvest for ten years. It is said that they
took to the area so fast that they became quote pests,
And there's an excerpt from a newspaper article written by
a man named Don Holm that says, indeed, they became
pests that drove off farmyard roosters, they ate their grain,
and even made off with their hens. Just think about
that for a minute. A guy ends up appointed to
(09:05):
a position in China. He catches a fascination for these birds,
and while he's over there, he decides, Hey, those may
do well at my brother's farm, so he live traps them,
puts them on a boat, ships them across the ocean.
Twenty nine, just twenty nine of them make it back
to Oregon, and somehow, some way that leads to a
pheasant population so healthy that my wife and I can
(09:25):
go and hunt them on publicly accessible ground in the
Dakotas and find success. Crazy. Okay, I'll shut up, now
back to you.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
Jared, the birds just took to the landscape at the time,
which was a lot of grass and small greens, which
pheasants at that time really took to. So after they
had their first pheasant season, there was a lot of
wildcot pheasants, so they call them that sort of f
one generation where people were taking them and distributing to
other landscapes throughout the United States, like the South Dakota's,
(09:56):
the Minnesota's. Some of those and other introductions followed over
the next couple decades, and by the nineteen thirties, pheasants
were pretty darn near established coast to coast across America,
like states like Pennsylvania, New York, some of these eastern
states that used to have this very large culture of
pheasant hunting. They've lost so much grass in that time
(10:18):
that you know, those populations aren't what they once were.
But you've got states out east that were also shooting
over a million birds per year for a lot of
years in a row. So it's like this cultural phenomenon.
I think that once pheasants took hold, they went from
a non native introduced species to this iconic form of
(10:41):
wildlife that spread throughout the Western States. The Great Plains
and then through the Eastern Coast as well.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Iconic form of wildlife. I want to ask Jared more
about that, but first there's one small easter egg of
information in there that I just can't let slide by.
If you recall, Jared said that after the first successful
pheasant hunt in eighteen ninety two, it became a popular
practice to catch wild pheasants and release them into other
areas of the country, such as the Dakotas and Minnesota,
(11:10):
and in the following years this led to them being
introduced or at least attempted to being introduced in the
rest of the country. So let's think back to the
Fanny Cook episode, one of my favorite episodes that we've
done so far. You should go back and listen to
it if you haven't already. In Miss Cook's episode, we
make mention of a game status report that was written
by Auto Loophold in nineteen twenty nine about the state
(11:34):
of Mississippi, and in that report, Loophold says, quote, pheasants
have been tried but so far failed, it's likely not
possible to introduce them. So when Jared says that they
had been attempted across much of the country. He means it.
I mean, think about it. When you think about pheasant
country today, does Mississippi come to anyone's mind. My guess
(11:55):
would be no, But hey, we tried.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
Even though it's not that far off where you know,
you've got wild pheasant populations that go all the way
down you know, Oklahoma, Texas. I mean as far as
Mississippi goes, you're not that far off base from where
wild populations currently have taken hold. There's information out there
talking about like having enough calcium and other minerals in
(12:21):
the dirt that allows for pheasant eggs to form the
right way. There's certain areas of the country where pheasants
do really well in other areas where they struggle, and
sometimes soil types can play into that and the amount
of nutrients that they have in order for pheasant eggs
to make it, which I find a little bit interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Interesting stuff, Jared, But now I want to focus in
on that iconic form of wildlife title that the pheasants
have earned. Most commonly, wildlife species don't just get handed
that title. They have to do something to earn it.
And what I learned in the making of this episode
is that pheasants did quite a few things to earn
that title.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
The Ring Neck Pheasant is the official state of South Dakota.
You ever seen the South Dakota Quarter at All Lake. Yeah,
So the back of the quarter is a rooster pheasant
that is flying over Mount Rushmore. Like they love their
pheasants so much and revere it so much that they
minted it on the back of their state quarter, which
I think is pretty cool. I always thought it would
(13:19):
be awesome if the eyes of you know, Mount Rushmore
and the presidents were sort of looking up, you know,
and shouting rooster while that thing's going over. But take
a look at some quarters sometime as you're going through
a change bucket in your house, and just look for this.
Look for the South Dakota Quarter. I think it speaks
to pheasant hunters and the culture, especially in a place
like the pheasant capital of South Dakota. But I think
(13:41):
one of the most fascinating stories surrounding the Ring Neck
Pheasant is their place in American history as part of
World War Two, particularly in a place like South Dakota.
In nineteen forty three, at the height of the war,
the Red Cross and the United Service organizations canteen at
the Milwaukee Deepo in Aberdeen had a well known slogan
(14:03):
and at that time it was a world standout for
a handout. They offered free launch and hospitality to more
than a half million servicemen and women during nearly three
years of operation during World War Two. In December of
nineteen forty three, farmers brought pheasants to the canteen workers
and the pheasant salad sandwich became a significant part of
(14:26):
the menu. And that's kind of where this pheasant sandwich
has kicked off from. It's finally chopped cooked pheasant, hard
boiled eggs are in there, I believe, onion, few other things.
But there were so many pheasants in South Dakota at
that time that pheasant hunts were organized to keep that
canteen supplied with South Dakota State bird and they were
(14:49):
really plentiful at that time. In nineteen forty three, they
had a pre hunt population of eleven million birds, which
is sort of mind blowing considering right now you think
that the population I think they're looking at is sixteen
to eighteen million nationwide, and eleven million pheasants in nineteen
forty three just in South Dakota. So for those that
(15:09):
might still travel to the state to take part in
their heritage and their culture of peasant hunting, the Aberdeen
Convention and Visitors Bureau actually still has pheasant sandwiches made
and for those that are coming in at the airport,
the depot I think has turned more into sort of
a historical site now about those pheasant sandwiches are still
still handed out. So I thought that's kind of a
(15:30):
cool place in American history in World War Two, given
pheasant sandwiches the servicemen.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
And when that's a fantastic story.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Yeah, it's pretty neat, great and they're delicious too.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I've had them before.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
We've been up there for you know, media events surrounding
sort of the some of the public land stuff that
we've done, and a couple of the lunches we've had
up there. They really like to showcase the pheasant salad sandwiches,
which which is awesome.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Another great another great way to make them.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, So I would say, and this is this is
my opinion, and I'm just talking about North American wildlife
fishery stuff. Most of the time when you hear the
term non native wildlife, whether they're talking about a bird,
whether they're talking about a mammal, whether they're talking about
a fish, it's brought up with a negative connotation. Now
(16:22):
take that a step even further. Most of the time,
when you hear non native wildlife and they're being introduced
somewhere or they're being you know, transplanted from one area
to another, even more so skewed towards that's normally brought
about with a negative connotation. This is like an obvious
example here, but like wild hogs, a non native, very
(16:45):
destructive wildlife. We know they're destructive to this day. Wildlife
departments have crazy issues with folks trying to sneak around
and live haul them and turn them loose because they
want to hunt them.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yep, the world.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's it's so like fascinating to me that you have
a bird in a ring neck pheasant that took hold
in much of the North American landscape and was not
only accepted into our culture, but so much so that
it's the state bird of South Dakota. That it's on
a quarter that you know you're getting fed pheasant sandwiches
(17:24):
when you get off an air, Like, like, how does
a bird that is not a native wildlife. How does
it embed itself so well into our culture that it's like, yeah,
we know you're not native, but come right in, you're
you're one of us. Now, Like, how did how did
that happen?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Before I answer that question, first and foremost, I want
to thank you for referring to the ring neck pheasant
as a non native species as opposed to invasive. We
get a lot of people that come on certain feeds
or podcasts, social media in general and refer to the
pheasant as invasive, and like you said, that that negative connotation,
(17:58):
like they're having a negative impact on the landscape, and
that's simply not true. I mean, you look at a
place like South Dakota. They've got multi hundred dollars or
million dollar industry built around pheasants in the farm bill
now and the conservation reserve program that pays landowners to
put grass on the landscape or conserve resources. I think
(18:18):
the pheasant and plenty of other species out there, but
the pheasant is one of them that basically has helped
with putting sort of that wildlife distinction into the farm bill.
As far as grass, it's like this strategic grassland reserve,
so there are non native species, they're not invasive, and
they've become sort of this icon of the Midwest and
Great Plains. And I'll throw this out there and people
(18:40):
can disagree with me, but to some degree, pheasants have
become a colorful indicator of environmental health across the region.
When we have a lot of buffers and we have
a lot of grass on the landscape, when we have
good weather too, that makes a ton of pheasants and
other wildlife. They promote pollinators and a lot of the
work that we do so on pollinators, which makes for
(19:02):
wonderful pheasant habitat. It creates clean water, creates clean air.
There's a lot of environmental benefits that come with managing
for the ring neck pheasant. So yeah, to your point,
I'm fine calling them sort of this non non native
species invasive. You can throw that out. I think that's garbage.
But they've really turned into this icon of the Midwest
(19:24):
and Great Plains. And one of the reasons why they're
called the king of game birds.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Allow me to break down for you what I think
is a fast track for gaining the title of iconic wildlife.
Number one proved to be of high cultural value Pheasants
accomplished this with the many hunting opportunities they created, as
well as a few standout instances like the pheasant sandwich
story that took place during World War two Number two,
(19:53):
prove that your existence on the landscape is beneficial both
for you, for humans, for other wildlife species, and for
wildlife habitats. Pheasants have done this in a lot of ways.
One of the most notable ways is becoming so beloved
that they made it into the farm built talk. And lastly,
and this one is quite a feat, but becomes so
popular that you have a large conservation organization built completely
(20:17):
around you. Let's pause and think about this one for
a minute. Out of all the big conservation organizations out
there that you know, the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited,
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, for example, all of which I'm
a big supporter of, but those are all native wildlife.
How many conservation organizations built around non native wildlife? Can
(20:40):
you list off? You ever hear of a wild Hog
Forever Federation? If you do, let me know, I mean seriously,
let me know, because someone would need to put a
stop to that. But for real, think about that. It's
quite a feat accomplished by a small, brightly colored Asian bird,
right you.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Know, from the beginning of time when Pheasants Forever was
created in nineteen eighty two and Dennis and Anderson at
the time, who still writes for the Minnesota Star Tribune
right now, basically wrote an article talking about how, you know,
we've lost a lot of habitat on the landscape, and
he begged the question, have you ever seen a pheasant
or other wildlife freeze to death on the side of
the road during a harsh winter when there's there's no
(21:19):
habitat available?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
And that's really sort of what.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Sparked this generation of pheasant hunters and creating Pheasants Forever
and our volunteers to basically go out and do good
things for the bird, whether it's habitat, whether it's public
access which inevitably leads to habitat. There's a lot of
different birds. I think that you can work a bird
dog on pheasant to me is just sort of the
(21:44):
upper eschelon of why people follow a bird dog around especially,
and the landscapes that they live into are so varying.
Everything from you know, we talked about Northeast Iowa at
the beginning of this and and sort of that driftless
region to sort of these stark, rolling landscapes of just grass.
As far as you can see, they live in tall
grass prairie, mixed grass prairie, and to some degree, pheasants
(22:08):
can still be found from coast to coasts, which is
why makes them such valuable wildlife for folks to go
out and chase.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
If y'all ever heard the phrase canary in the coal mine,
if you haven't, it basically means an indicator for danger
or failure. Well, I think we should coin our own
from now on. Instead of saying canary in the coal mine,
I'm gonna say pheasant on the roadside, which honestly wouldn't
really work, because you see pheasants standing on roadsides even
in areas where there is good habitat. But the point
(22:36):
I'm attempting to make here is that pheasants became a
country wide indicator for habitat health, which is one of
the main reasons Pheasants Forever was formed, and also one
of the reasons Pheasants Forever and Quel Forever is known
as the Habitat Organization. And the beauty of that is
even if an individual has a singular goal of creating
more habitats for pheasants, that has compounding effects. Remember the
(23:00):
ecological maxim we learned a few episodes back. You can
never just do one thing. Actions have consequences and ripple effects,
and creating more habitats for pheasants in turn creates more
habitats and recreational opportunities for a lot of other things.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Going back to our history in nineteen eighty two, that
group of pheasant hunters saw the connection between upland habitat
loss and declining pheasant populations, decided that an organization was needed,
and that's how Pheasants Forever was formed. In two thousand
and five, Quail Forever sort of followed that model as
well due to declining numbers, and Pheasants Forever and Quil
Forever together quickly garnered its reputation as the Habitat Organization.
(23:42):
And that's a tagline that we still use today. I
use it just about every day in the writing that
I do because I love it so much. But you know,
our mission is conserve pheasants, quail another wildlife through habitat improvements,
public access education, and conservation advocacy. And you know, I
think everybody's familiar with all the wonderful conservation groups out there,
the Ducks and Limited, the National Wild Turkey Federation's Rocky
(24:04):
Mountain Elk Foundation, all these other ones, and we work
with a lot of them on combined projects. But Pheasants
Forever and quil Forever, I think is unique and that
one hundred percent of the decision making control over the
funds raised by local volunteers. So we've got seven hundred
and sixty five chapters right now throughout the United States
(24:24):
in every state right now, which is pretty cool. But
the decision of how to use those funds stays local
with the chapter, so they use those for wildlife habitat
conservation efforts in their own communities. And then we also
have a number of different awesome programs and initiatives, whether
it's the advocacy side and supporting what we do in Washington,
(24:44):
DC because the stroke of a pen can change things there,
and as people know, in a very short amount of time,
to our path program, which is our public Access to
Habitat program that was formed a year and a half
ago after some trial and error, and that program has
really grown to be sort of a mainstay we still
do land acquisitions in our Build a Wildlife Area program.
(25:06):
We've conserved two hundred and forty three thousand acres of
permanent land acquisition here since nineteen eighty two, which is awesome.
If you hunt the outside of those just the outside
of those acres would take you all the way from
mid Canada down through mid Mexico. But the New PATH
program is unique in that we provide an extra incentive
to landowners that maybe want to get into some type
(25:28):
of conservation reserve program enrollment. But that extra incentive is
used for walk and access. We combine it with state
access programs and we've had a lot of success doing it.
In the last year and a half now we've got
about one hundred and thirty thousand extra acres on the
landscape for bird hunters and their bird dogs to roam,
to go out and enjoy and to grow wildlife. And
(25:50):
in a lot of cases, every single contract that we
have through Path protects that property for you know, whether
it's five years or ten years that the landowner sign
signs up for. In most cases there's restrictions on what
a landowner can do on those acres. It is meant
so that when somebody shows up to a path enrollment
right now, you're not showing up to something that's been
(26:14):
hate or grazed off. You're showing up to an awesome
wildlife factory that is going to have.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Birds on it when you hunt it.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
And we've seen that time and time again from people
that have anecdotal stories like, Wow, this is an awesome
program and I'm glad I found this path signed on
this property.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
The final point that I want to point out with
Pheasants is in most other circles and this is just
more anecdotal than like fact based or science history. You
could take turkeys, you could take deer, ducks, you could
you could take almost any other you know, game that
we hunt. You could take it all the way down
to like the single or individual level, where guys are like, yeah,
(26:55):
I'm not telling you where I'm going, or you take
it to the state level and everyone's like, yeah, go
hunt turkeys deer, just don't come to my state and
do it, or man, we've got too many non residents.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And I'm not like, again, I'm not down on the
other side of it by any means, because like Lord knows,
I would probably give you my bank account information before
I told you where my turkey, you know, my turkey
spots were. But peasant hunting might be the most welcoming
style of hunting that I've ever come in contact with.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
I think you're onto something there. There's like this community
aspect of peasant Now. I love going out by myself
and just my bird dog and tracking down a wily
rooster and you know, having it retrieved a hand, that's awesome.
But there's a community aspect of hunting with friends, hunting
with family. We just had a lot of openers here
(27:49):
the past couple of weeks. This past weekend was Iowa,
which I was set to shoot upwards of seven hundred
and fifty thousand roosters this year. It's going to be
their best, probably their best pheasant season in the past
twenty five years. You know, South Dakota, Minnesota both had
wonderful winters. They had huge increases in birds and sort
of those opening day photos that you see if people
(28:09):
people smiling, you know, the kids holding roosters, and a
lot of limits were taken and that's not necessarily what
it's about. But in modern day glory days, I think
kind of we're going through a little bit of that
right now. The last time we saw that was probably
around two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, before
the farm bill flipped over and we lost a lot
of acres in a lot of states. I mean, those
(28:31):
were modern day highs at that time that were right
in line with how many acres of grass were on
the landscape. We're seeing some good things this year, and
you know, access is a fine line. I think a
lot of these states are inviting South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa,
I mean, Kansas, Nebraska. I mean, everybody wants you to
come out and experience pheasant hunting or quail hunting or
(28:53):
any type of upland hunting in those states. And you know,
I take a little bit of crap from time to
time as the PR guy, I really like to talk
about our access successes as well, Like when we do
a thousand acre land acquisition, I want.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
People to know about it.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
But then there's also that blowback, right like, oh, looks
like you guys screwed that one up, you know, and
it's like, well, not really, it's permanently protected. There's always
gonna be pheasants there. Like here's here's a for instance,
for you, we just did a path enrollment in South
Dakota that was thirty two thousand acres. You can find
it pretty easy using Onyx and some of those layers,
(29:30):
but like thirty two thousand acres, like you just aren't
gonna go out there with five six guys and walk
that in a day or two days or two weeks.
Like we're trying to enroll extremely large parcels. And when
we do things like that, I really like to sort
of tell the story like, Hey, this is Pheasants Forever,
our local chapters and willing landowners providing access for you
(29:51):
to go out and enjoy the spaces where bird dogs
love to roam, and we're gonna continue doing those types
of things. But I think you're right. For the most part.
It's a little bit different and deer hunting or turkey hunting,
where people are like, hey, come on out, we've got
this public land and it's full of birds this year
for your enjoyment.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Exactly, but it with like presence, it's like come on man, yeah,
I'll share. It's a completely different vibe and it's so
interesting to me, like that this bird has this bird
is an outlier in so many ways, Like it's gotten
adopted by our country pretty much, and it conjures up
(30:28):
like a completely different attitude within its hunting community that
we really don't see anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
And you know, I think Pheasants Forever and Coil Forever
as a conservation group is unique right now in that
we're utilizing, we're updating our strategic plan. We're using the
most up to date science that's out there to determine, like, hey,
if we're going to hold on to these pheasant populations
and grow them in these certain areas, Like where where
are we seeing the biggest increases? Why are we seeing
(30:55):
those increases? You know, when we put public lands on
the landscape, it's not like, oh, thirty acres, let's go
out and buy it. It's strategic, right We're creating complexes
and big areas that can produce a lot of wildlife.
And you pointed to it earlier, it's not just pheasants.
Like the things that we do from a grassland standpoint
are wonderful for pollinators, for songbirds. Huge betting areas for
(31:19):
one of my favorite things to do, especially in Northeast Iowa.
When I was going to school, there was deer hunt
huge grasslands surrounded by woods, and just like trying to
figure out the puzzle of like where these deer are traveling,
like they're gonna go and travel through, you know, five
six foot tall indian grass or big blue stem, and
trying to sort of figure out that puzzle. And then
(31:41):
when it all comes together and you go out and
arrow a big one, it's gratifying to figure that out
and know that, like, hey, those grasslands are there for.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
A reason and all wildlife are using them. It's not
just not just upland birds.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
If y'all have followed along with this show since the beginning,
then you probably know by now that one of the
main factors that we focus on is human impact on
wildlife and wild places. And to be honest, most of
the time when we talk about this, we're talking about
negative impacts, not because we go looking for the negatives,
but rather it just seems to be more skewed that direction.
(32:18):
That's why I want to make sure that whenever we
come across positive human impact on wildlife, by Golly, we
celebrate it because it's worth celebrating. More wildlife and more
wildlife habitat is good for everything and everyone hard, stop
big facts, the simple truth. And although there's complexity when
(32:38):
we start talking about the effects of non native wildlife
on the North American landscape, the ring necked pheasant is
in a class all its own. I want to give
Jared a chance to wrap up this conversation with some
final thoughts before we close this out.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Benefit of wildlife, I think it's benefited rural communities as well,
farmers and ranchers. I mean a lot of the work
that we do, a ton of public lands work. For
as much public lands work as we do, we've got
a whole contingent of biologists that work on private lands,
which is where a lot of pheasants and other wildlife
are made in this country. And the grass that we
(33:13):
help landowners put down, I mean those are strategic reserves
not just for wildlife, but for the cattle industry as
well when we do have bad years and years of droughts.
So there's a saying out there like what's good for
the bird is good for the herd, and it's absolutely true.
We can grow wildlife and have all the cattle and
corn and things that we want while still mass producing
(33:34):
wildlife and having clean water and environmental services. That you know,
all Americans enjoy, which I think is really important.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I want to thank all of you for listening to
Backwoods University as well as Bear Grease in this country life.
It means a whole lot to all of us. If
you liked this episode, share it with somebody this week. Heck,
here's a good idea. Share it with the last person
you saw this's a pheasant. I'm sure they'll appreciate the
sentiment and stick around, because if this podcast was a
pheasant hunt, we've got a few in the vest. But
(34:07):
the dog just started acting Birdie again. There's a whole
lot more on the way.
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