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BrentD, Your insect observation mirrors my experience in Iowa.

We used to hunt standing corn and often had a difficult time finding downed pheasants hiding in the weeds between cornstocks . Great habitat. Now, we see no weeds in standing corn and almost no pheasants. As for bugs, a longtime farmer told me a few years ago that he had not seen a grasshopper in 4 years. Thank the above situations to Roundup Ready. Great corn, but the habitat and food for birds is poor.

Daryl, in addition to "clean rows" in the corn, there are other problems these days when it comes to hunting pheasants in standing corn. Far fewer birds; taller corn; bigger fields. But I too remember hunting standing corn with a lot of foxtail and other weeds. Those were prime spots for roosters in Iowa back in the 50's and 60's, when I was first getting started. But usually, I didn't hunt with big enough groups to spend much time in standing corn anyway. I did a lot of hunting dogless in road ditches and along RR tracks. The latter is technically private property, but everybody did it back then and the railroad companies didn't seem to mind.

Furadan, the pesticide used to kill those bald eagles, is being used to poison wildlife on a vast scale in Africa. A lion kills your cow, just sprinkle a few pennies worth on the carcass and the whole pride dies when they come back the next night. Along with every scavenger - hyena, jackal, eagle, and vulture - that feeds on it. Poisoning has been the primary factor in the collapse of lion populations, and vultures, which were ubiquitous in savanna Africa until twenty years ago, are now nearing extinction. Vultures are also poisoned deliberately by ivory poachers,so that authorities cannot easily find elephant carcasses, and for their bits and pieces for use in magic. Elephants are also targeted by poisoning waterholes. Lake fish are harvested for human consumption with Furadan and other chemicals.

As Brent said, not much good is happening out there.

Love bugs must not be susceptible to any of these bad old pesticides...........their range has increased in the last couple of years to include my area, where before they never existed. Also immune to pesticides here must be house flies, mosquitos, black flies and yellowflies, horseflies, ticks, gnats, the tiny sweat bees, wasps, ants ............ none are decreasing in number here.

But then, maybe I'm hallucinating from all the years of spraying ..........

SRH

That pretty much mirrors the insect populations in my neck of the woods too, Stan. I've even noticed that honeybees seem to be bouncing back after several years of relative scarcity.

No doubt that clean farming techniques took a toll on game bird populations, but it hardly explains the situation in northern grouse habitat where herbicides are never used and cover still constantly changes due to forest maturation, and subsequent timbering. And just try to get a Game Commission biologist in my state to admit how they screwed up ringneck pheasant hunting by changing the law to permit shooting hens when populations were already beginning to decline.

Like BrentD, I haven't had to wash my windshield very often this year either. But that's because we're having more days than average with rain this year. Hardly scientific proof of anything except that rain and windshield wipers will remove bug guts.

Sadly most farmers have let the chemical companies get them by them by the balls...

High yields along with the ease of farming...compared to years past. A few farmers have woken up but not too many...truth is the only people making a profit off farming are the chemical and genetically altered seed companies.

Backbreaking work and heartbreaking weather...Geo

Wrong. Corporations have everyone by the balls. The goal is to grow eat up competition paying out least in doing so while maximizing profits. That is why legal emigrants to our shores now come from what our Leader said "shit-hole"? counties. Those people will work hard for same or less than workers born here. Corporate executives, bankers, investors and politicians don't care because their kids don't have to compete with kids of newcomers nor do they have to compete for jobs with the parents. Norwegians aren't going to leave wealthy prosperous country where they work to live to come into a system where people live to work. This is not hard to understand.

Farmers aren't the only ones heartbroken about the weather. If things continue as they're we will all want to live in Canada or Alaska!

Might be on to something, Jag. It�d be funny to see how fast Sunny Boy builds that wall when a horde of Americans starts streaming North!


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