To the editor:
South Dakota charges both residents and non-residents for a habitat stamp, but a former governor took away our scientific 76-year-long yearly statewide pheasant brood survey. This survey is needed to evaluate the success of the money spent on pheasant habitat. What were they thinking?
The Tail Bounty Program we proved was a waste of money because not enough predators were taken to benefit pheasants (only a portion of the yearly reproduction). This was worse when a bounty was included for coyotes. Never has a bounty controlled any predator in North America, especially coyotes. The only way coyotes can be controlled on a long-term basis is with the poison 1080, which also kills other animals. This ½ million should be spent on CRP habitat since predator control for pheasants is also not economical. (our study results).
It is incorrect to use the pheasant harvest survey from the previous year to set seasons because the current year is a different population of birds (new reproduction). The Game Harvest Survey is not verifiable or scientific since the hunters just say how many birds they harvest.
Besides, they added the take on game preserves to the harvest survey results to inflate the wild birds harvest to lure non-residents into the state. These figures are “fake news”. The wild pheasant numbers should always be kept separate from any tally of game preserve pheasants. The loss of the brood survey from 1919 means we have no accurate information on South Dakota pheasant populations for seven years. I hope the state gets the brood survey back soon. The South Dakota Wildlife Federation (three thousand three hundred members) is also working to get South Dakota pheasant management out of the dark ages.
Larry Fredrickson
Chamberlain
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