Hunters Advised to Scout Public Access Sites
LINCOLN, Neb. – While Nebraska upland bird hunters can find excellent habitat across the state, some may find Open Fields and Waters program public access sites lacking suitable habitat. The emergency haying and grazing authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture was due to the extreme drought conditions.
Open Fields and Waters provides public walk-in hunting and fishing access to more than 275,000 acres of private land.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission recommends hunters scout sites as the Oct. 27 opener of the statewide pheasant, quail and partridge season approaches.
Of the hayed or grazed Open Fields and Waters sites, most will have 50 percent habitat and few may have no habitat remaining. Because of the production schedule, the 2012 Public Access Atlas does not reflect hayed or grazed lands. Payment will be adjusted or withheld if landowner haying or grazing results in significant loss of wildlife cover.
Most of the haying or grazing occurred following the nesting season, which is typically early May through mid-July. Nest success should not have been affected, but the lack of habitat could have had a negative effect on chick survival. In addition, upland game birds only need a small percentage of the total habitat in the form of winter cover for survival.
The reduction of habitat can be detrimental, but haying and grazing also have positive effects, such as removal of unwanted trees and disturbance of thick grass stands, which promotes plant diversity for better nesting and brood rearing habitat. Haying and grazing also can be a great pre-treatment for habitat upgrades such as disking or interseeding.
This was the most dismal, sparse pheasant season we can recall over the past 10 yrs. In 2 days we saw perhaps 15 roosters, less than a dozen hens & 8 of us came home w/5 birds. We realize Mother Nature wrecked havoc on the population what w/extreme heat & no moisture. However, the grazing & bailing of SO much CRP doesn’t allow much cover for the few surviving birds out there. The original DOW report as to population was quite erroneous from our viewpoint. We won’t be back again this season & next yr will be even worse as there will be no birds left to re-populate the area. Small numbers of roosters & even less hens = no eggs, no 2013 birds.
I agree, but the game and parks continues to care more about hunter “opportunity” than actually managing populations. Pheasants are no where near what they were in the 70′s and early 80′s yet the bag limit is just the same.
And yes then when things are hard on the birds we destroy the habitat that is there for them.
The sad thing is the same thing is Happening to the Mule deer in south central Nebraska. After admiting that mule deer population had declined 20-30% over the last 3 years in the conservation area, the game and parks opened up more tags to non-residents! and they still allow harvest of mulies unregulated on land owner tags. They are far to concerned with generating cash flow, and not concerned about maintaining healthy populations.
they need to lower pheasant bag limits and severely limit mule deer harvest!
It is very sad to realize that this great huntiung area is most likely never to return to its potential in the next few years. I have invested in the area and visit at least twice a year and 4 times a year some. I bought some property, pay taxes and buy gas and groceries. But if we have another drought anywhere near last years the upland game resource cannot recover, possibly in my lifetime. I do not know what the NGCP could do about a environmental tragedy but what was the best kept secret on the plains is now gone. I do know that it was a mistake to allow cutting CRP without concern for the game. If cutting in strips had been encouraged better cover would have improved nesting and hunting. Most of the CRP I encountered was cut 50% and only the hill tops and easy to reach spots were denuded and the hill sides left to erode. No thought was given to the allowance for haying. Further I am aware that alot of the hay was sold out of state so the CRP payment didn’t get to the local areas. Things are not looking good for the next few years.