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jfears,
I contacted Jim Pitman in the KDWPT Emporia Research Office and he directed me to an online brochure that addresses your and several other common questions. You can find this brochure HERE . I've provided applicable excerpts from the brochure below.
KDWP should reduce the pheasant bag so that we will have more birds in future years.Originally Posted by jfears
Pheasants are minimally affected by hunting because only males can be legally harvested. A single male pheasant can mate with many hens each season. A spring sex
ratio of one rooster per 10 hens is sufficient for all hens to be bred and initiate nests. In Kansas, at least three or four roosters are typically available per 10 hens each
spring. Changes in pheasant numbers from one year to the next are mostly dependent on the weather. Longterm population changes are driven by land use and its
effect on the quantity and quality of habitat available for nesting and brood rearing. Pheasants are short-lived birds and cannot be stockpiled by limiting hunting or imposing more restrictive seasons or bag limits.
The agency regulates deer numbers through hunter harvest. Why can’t they do the same thing for upland game birds?
The biological factors driving deer and gamebird populations are quite different. Deer are relatively long-lived and have a lower reproductive potential compared to upland gamebirds (pheasant, quail, prairie chickens, etc.). This difference makes survival of adult animals much more important to the growth of a deer population. Hunting greatly impacts natural survival of adult deer because a high percentage of the harvested animals would otherwise survive to reproduce. Thus, it is possible to regulate the size of a deer population by adjusting the number of animals that are taken by hunters.
Hunter harvest has minimal impact on upland gamebird populations because a high percentage of the harvested animals would have succumbed to natural mortality even in the absence of hunting. The primary force influencing the growth of upland game populations is productivity. Upland gamebirds typically lay clutches with more than 10 eggs and renest if necessary. Productivity of upland gamebirds is highly variable and more affected by habitat and weather than productivity of deer.
Hunter harvest poses virtually no risk to a pheasant population because only males can be legally harvested. There is a slightly greater risk for harvest to influence populations of prairie chickens and quail because females can be harvested. The time of year when most harvest occurs determines the severity of that risk. The likelihood that a hen will survive until the breeding season becomes greater as fall turns into winter. Thus, lateseason harvest of females has somewhat more potential to reduce the number of breeding hens than early-season harvest. In Kansas, the majority of the harvest occurs early in the season for both these species.
When considering the impact of hunter harvest on prairie chicken and quail populations it is also important to recognize that 1) hunting activity is not evenly distributed across the landscape and 2) gamebird populations in Kansas are seldom geographically isolated from other birds. Even if late-season harvest is heavy in one place, there is generally another population of birds nearby that receives little or no hunting pressure. Natural dispersal from these areas assures that overexploited populations get replenished, so long as habitat and weather conditions are suitable for productivity.
Why doesn’t the state stock game birds to supplement or establish populations?
It was once common for state fish and game agencies to propagate and distribute pheasants and quail for stocking, but this practice largely ceased after research clearly revealed it was ineffective. Pen-raised birds simply do not have the skills necessary to survive in the wild.
Since the 1970s, numerous studies have documented survival of pen-reared pheasants and quail using all sorts of propagation and release techniques.
Nest success and chick survival were extremely poor for the few stocked birds that did survive long enough to reproduce. This was true even when the birds were released into ideal habitat.
The most recent stocking technique is a device known as a “surrogator,” which is essentially a portable brooder house than can be placed at the intended release site. This method is relatively new, but the two scientific studies that have evaluated this approach found no improvement over previously-tested stocking techniques. In 2005, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources released 1,641 wingtagged quail chicks using surrogators on a plantation considered to have ideal quail habitat. During the fall following release, less than 1 percent of the quail harvested on the plantation were produced in surrogators. The researchers estimated the cost for each surrogated bird harvested to be $74.53, not including the cost of the surrogators. A separate study conducted by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has recently found similar poor results with surrogated pheasant chicks.
The only proven method of increasing populations is to create and maintain suitable habitat. Spending money on habitat improvements is much more cost effective and wild birds will re-colonize the area naturally. Upland game populations are sufficiently distributed across Kansas for this to occur when suitable
habitat is provided.
Count me in as well!
I hope this helped to answer your questions.
Craig
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