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Where Have All Our Birds Gone?

Posted on: April 30, 2007

By Dan Adamson

A number of years ago, the words of a popular song asked the question, “Where have all the flowers gone?”

If you’re old enough to remember the song, you may have another question to ask our Fish & Game Department. That question is, “Where have all the pheasants gone?”

Well, where have all the pheasants gone? Where have all the deer fawns and elk-calves gone? Do you know who ate the… well, pick your favorite bird!

We all know the oft-repeated answer. The habitat has been lost and pesticides have further damaged the populations. But that is only part of the answer – not the full one.

However, there is another factor that seems to be either ignored, or pooh-poohed by those who make policy. That factor is that there are a lot more predators (of every kind) that hunt pheasants rather than us, humans.

Most pheasant habitat is on private property. Private property rights are one of the bedrocks of American society and I would never want to tell a farmer that he had no right to use all of his land in order to grow a crop and make a living. Because private property rights allow a farmer to tear out the weed patch along the canal or the overgrown area around the farm house, there are some habitat issues that are going to be very difficult to change. However, I believe that pheasant predators are the real culprit.

Search your memory. Do you ever remember seeing a red fox in the good ole days? How often did you smell a skunk? If you’re not that old, ask your grandpa or your uncle the same questions.

Yes, our pheasant habitat has been shrinking but not as fast as pheasant predators have been increasing. Regardless of the shrinking habitat our pheasants have had to survive from having one or two predators to a hundred different predators either in species or in number of pheasant eating varmints.

I DO NOT believe or SUGGEST that we need to eradicate all predators.

I do believe the Fish and Game Department receives it’s funding from the people who buy hunting and fishing licenses in Idaho. It is difficult to understand why so much of that money is used to support and protect species that eat the ones we are paying the Fish and Game Department, not just to protect, but to make available.

The fact is that most preyed upon species reproduce faster than species predators. Like with everything what we need is good management of our resources. But we need to manage both sides of the resource. Sometimes that means we have to reduce the number of predators that are eating the very animal that thousands of Idahoans find very delightful to hunt.

A simple question that I ask is; “Why are Idaho hunters considered to be worse predators of our deer, elk, and pheasants than the four-legged predators that kill in and out of season and are not subject to human regulatory processes.”

Maybe the Fish and Game Department should ignore some of the politically-correct special-interest groups who say the foxes, skunks, coyotes, wolves and mountain lions have equal rights with the license paying citizens of Idaho. That is absurd! In my opinion it is like saying that criminals and prisoners should have all (and equal) rights that non-criminals and non-prisoners should have!

Maybe IF&G should allow us more opportunity to hunt the predators of our deer, elk, and pheasant species.

Maybe…well, just maybe we should change the climate at the Fish & Game and have them realize predators are NOT sacred, they are subject to the same biological and evolutionary laws as are the animals they eat and that we pay to hunt.

Maybe we should change the political climate so that the IF&G exists in order to afford more hunting opportunities for the very people who provide their funding. Maybe the complete protection of all animals, whether game or not, should not be paid for by hunters.

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About Dave Langston

Outdoor writer Dave Langston resides in Chubbuck. He grew up in the Midwest and south fishing and hunting across the country.

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