Send Letter to Editor A federal boon to wild pheasants Why stock
game farm pheasants? || Pheasants forever? All species need one
thing to survive: habitat. Without suitable food or cover, even
the most prolific wildlife species cannot maintain a healthy
population. To persist, habitat must be at the heart of any game
management program. Consider the ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus
colchicus); once prolific, this grassland bird has declined as
rural land uses changed in Wisconsin. These birds need three
things: Suitable pheasant habitat has been shrinking in
Wisconsin for the last 40-50 years, until recently. Wild
pheasants adapt readily to agricultural land if farming is not
too intensive. But the wide fencerows that formerly provided
good pheasant nesting and escape cover have been eliminated or
reduced to narrow strips as farmers aimed to maximize production
on every acre. Federal farm subsidies reduced the amount of idle
or fallow lands by rewarding farmers for producing more crop.
Gone were the weedy corn