I had a funny thing happen the other day. I was talking to a local guy about our mutual love of hunting, especially pheasant hunting. He began railing against the State Division of Wildlife about the fact that they aren’t more active about promoting pheasant populations in the state. “They should do more,” he said.
The funny thing about it was that two days later I saw him and his dad out burning off their fencerows and ditch banks on their property. He saw no connection between his land management and pheasant populations. It was simply something the Division of Wildlife should fix.
Almost without exception, every landowner in our county and the surrounding four counties burns off their fields, ditch banks and fencerows every spring. This has gone on for generations; my dad and grandpa always did it. In fact, burning off the ditch banks was an event that would warrant a visit home from college. I believe that it’s primarily recreational. Let’s face it, it’s fun to play with fire. We can say that we are doing it to maximize water flow, keeping the weeds down, or cleaning the place up, but the fact of the matter is, around us most of the ditches are concrete lined or in pipes now, so surrounding vegetation doesn’t take up water.
The problem is that this type of clean farming, where all the ditch banks and fencerows are slicked off, strips the land of cover for wildlife, namely pheasants. I found it ironic that the farmer that was complaining about the low pheasant numbers was the very person that could make a difference in the county. The Division of Wildlife can shorten seasons and constrain possession limits, but where pheasants are concerned, they require habitat, and that habitat is on private land. Here in the arid west (Utah), the limiting factor for pheasant populations is over winter and early spring cover. Without that, you can’t grow pheasant populations. If you were to calculate the acres of all the ditch banks and fence rows cumulatively that are burned clean just in this county it would add up to a significant amount of pheasant cover. So, this fall, or next spring, when you get ready to burn your ditch banks and fencerows, think about the little piece of pheasant cover you could leave for a few more pheasants.
