doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wild Birds vs. Game Preserves

Some further thots on dwindling populations or no birds ..

One has to wonder exactly what the common thread is/was. About the only thing that comes to mind as possibly plausable is the use of pestcides, not necessarily DDT either, rather anything that eleminates bugs in general. Quail need bugs and W. TX birds eat grasshoppers, among other things. Today, we do not see large populatons of grasshoppers and that is inclusive of ranches where there was never anything but land/cattle business. Cattle, btw, are probably not good for game management, but that kinda thinking can bend feelers & is not altogether popular. Moisture at the right time can make or break hatches. Two years ago would seem to validate that .. birds were everywhere.

Today feral hogs are everywhere, rain or not. They hunt truffles in Europe with pigs don't they? Think a feral hog can smell an egg on the ground vs. a truffle that is buried below the forest floor?

Feeders are responsible, IMHO, for a great deal of bird predation. I hold the opinion that supplimental game feeding should be done only in brushy areas and or areas where the birds can feed with some protective cover in the form of cactus, brush, Mesquite, etc. Some folks running managed places, hunters, and deer hunters in particular seem to always place feeders where they are easy to get to and in clearings & also within clear sight of their blinds. Owls are anything but stupid; some appreciate the blind placement as much as the deer corn or maise/millet attracting the coveys. The same may be said for a number of other critters that find the birds tasty as well.

Agriculture has had to have some impact in the south, I would think, but the extinction of the bird populations in parts of the south even on places like some of the old large plantations that have remained essentially 'the same' tell us that something is not the same. What? People population densities, varmint proliferation, insecticides in wide use so not so many bugs anymore for the birds to eat? I don't know and apparently neither does anyone else. It has been the topic of discussion as long as I can remember and was being cussed and discussed by the bird hunters when I was a youngster. Good populations of wild birds are hard to find anymore. I have heard just about everything blamed in one way or another except for global warming. In the 70's that same group was forecasting an approaching ice age, but I don't think they are bird hunters or I would have heard that [take your pick] as the primary cause for bird decline. Fire ants get a lot of conversation, but there are bird issues in areas in the west where they are absent.

I know & know of people who have hunted wild birds with a passion their whole lives and then when their health and legs gave out, switched to pen raised birds to be able to continue to see their dogs work and get some shooting in. I think of one individual in particular who also switched to a M42 and shot from a golf cart toward his last days. He was a passionate and caring guy who also happened to be a world class shot and it gave him some real satisfaction to shoot a handful of pen-raised birds from time to time and I think it is great that he could do so. Today there are some specialized suppliers of assorted game birds that will fly hard and fast when flushed and that have never seen a human from the time they were hatched until they are loosed in the field. Not all preserves use them, but some do.

Wild birds are just that and they are found in fewer places today than even twenty-five years ago. One can hope that the 'key' to re-establishing birds to their former areas will be found, but for right now pen raised birds may be all that can be had in many areas of the country and I think it is both silly and unfair to decry their use, be it for dog training, a bit of shooting satisfaction or simply supplying someone with a taste for quail a box of cleaned birds.

Sorry for the long ramble, but I would hope that we don't get into the 'my way or the hiway' mentality over birds. Is there a dif? Sure! So?

A hen pheasant is better on the table, but they may not be taken legally in the wild that I know of. They flush & fly as hard as a rooster. I enjoy shooting a few each year in a preserve environment, it is the only opportunity I generally get.

I can still hunt wild birds in W. TX, when they are there. This year will be skinnier than last in many areas, just OK in others and better in those areas that got the rains. That's what it looks like right now anyway.

Happy trails either way, but pay attention and stay safe. Good dogs and solid friends are both valuable & hard to come by.

I find the quality vs non-quality preserve interesting. I know of 2 quality preserves / clubs. One is open to the public, Orvis endorsed and has been written up in DGJ. I have hunted there. Not the place I could afford though at $500 a day.

The other is a very private club located in Wisconsin. I was there once, but not allowed to hunt. The land was well managed and wild as you could want. A lot of their birds were wild born. They also did regular releases to sustain the populations. I was told to join, you need 3 members to recommend you, a $15,000 initiation fee and $5,000 a year in membership. After that answer, I didn't ask any other questions.

Most of the preserves I know of that are successful have learned to attract corporate clients. While they have individual memberships, the money is with the corporate client.

I would hope that most hunters today have the sense to belong to an organization, such as Ducks Unlimited or The Ruffed Grouse Society, that is committed to reclaiming the land and increasing the wild populations.

Pete

tw is on to something with the feeders. My buddy in south Jersey cleaned the quail right out of his fencerow with a feeding station three years ago. There today; gone tomorrow, tomorrow of course being open season.

jack

Going to Bittner's Wild [sic] Wings west of Allentown on the 12th. I'm not too bothered by the idea that they might actually flush within range. BYOD. Don't have one but my buddy does. Dogs are like swimming pools. Expensive and time-consuming and the neighbor's is more fun than having one of your own.

jack

I do not consider preserve hunts a sham. They do differ in quality and the hunters here have voiced a wide range of experiences. When you try one and have a good experience go back again and again. If it is not for you try another or hunt wild. But the other side of the coin is that hunters vary in quality also. Some would never kill a bird in the wild and need preserves to have any chance of success.

Maybe preserves are bigger where you live, but there are none in my neck of the wood that are 1000 acres. Most are about a third that or less. They try to make the most of what they have but you can only do so much with a few hundred acres.

The problem is that land has been cut up into smaller and smaller plots over the last 200 years. Not that many 1,000 acre spreads.

My farm of just over 600 was two seperate parts that I put togeather a few years ago. If I am lucky I might be able to buy another 200-300 acres in the next ten years but that is as large as my farm will ever be. With land prices going up more all the time it get too expensive to buy land. In fact if I had to buy my own farm today I could not and I have owned it for less than ten years.

Bill I think that's the reason for the decline in hunters. Small game managment needs to be top priority.
Tennessee has went so far as to hire a guy to tell them why hunter numbers have declined and why people quit hunting ?
I think a big part of the reason lies in the fact that all the Game and Fish people have worried about was big game.
Small game hunting is fun...big game hunting can be boring to a young hunter. I know several people that only exposed their sons to big game hunting and their sons all stopped hunting.

We need new bumper stickers..."Take a Child Small Game Hunting".
L.F.

HomelessJoe -"AMEN!" As the father of two boys and one girl, all introduced to shooting/hunting at a young age, I totally agree. Kids span of attention is short and if nothing is happening for hours on end this time, then next time they opt for the computer/Netendo, etc, Best, DR. BILL

Personally I think we 'hunters' have a recessive gene that causes us to hunt

or it could be that people that don't hunt have a recessive gene that causes them not to.

I made the sugestion to TWRA to stop young hunters from big game hunting untill they reach a more mature age and some how make them show TWRA that they have been small game hunting.

In other words devise a plan to make them earn the right and learn a little about the outdoors before they become a tree stand deer hunter.
I started small game hunting at about 8 and at 50 I enjoy it now just as much then.
L.F.

Well the "best" studies show it "take one to make one" as far as hunter retention goes. However kids/small game hunters don't vote or pay taxes or hold large fund raisers like Buckmasters,etc. So ..... we get the back mammary gland and lot's of placating? words. Best, Dr. Bill

tw, I have to disagree with you on the elimination of bugs being the end of the quail. Bugs are a necessity for chicks growth, they need that protein. I still see hen turkeys with their young out in the fields getting grasshoppers and bugs. The one problem is habitat for quail and pheasants is gone. The MAIN REASON is like I stated before, the Game Commision does not care about small game, there is no revenue in small game in the Eastern U.S. and these people don't care.
We had portions of land supposidly put aside, CRP, for wildlife, mainly birds in quite a few states, but here in the east still no birds.
What we as sportsman have to do is find somebody in our own state that is going to be running for Congress, or that is already in there that cares about sportmans needs and push these points across to them.
I don't know how other states hire Game Commisoners, game wardens or whatever you want to call them , but here in Pa. they have to have a college degree. Never did before, and it seems the hunting and fishing was better. Now they need the big money because of their education, and now the cost of licenses is getting way up there to pay for them and not for wildlife funding. To give an example, in Leheigh County, Pa. they stocked 1500 pheasants in 2004, in 2005 they cut the number in half, why, who knows. That was for 2 Game Commision game lands. Who knows if they stock any open land that the farmers let people hunt, don't think so anymore.
So the whole thing does boil down to preserve shooting, not a nice thing. There is some farm land near me, that I have permission to hunt, but there is nothing there, so I think I will have to buy some birds and train the pup there. Almost the same thing as a preserve, except the cost is less, but it still doesn't come close to wild bird hunting. David