It is all about habitat. Before tiling was a thing here, nearly every section had waterways that held allmanners of game. With tiling, those days are past. The only places in my neck of the woods that have any birds, rabbits, deer, etc. are tracts of CRP or WRP end of story. It does r matter how many coon a farmer or trapper gets off of his silage piles, birds need tracts of cover, and mown ditches aren’t it. Any doubters, PM me and I’ll take a day off work and let you see first hand.

That's what they said with wolves in wilderness areas here. Guess what, they've decimated deer, elk, and moose populations. There is no "self-regulation" with predators. They kill everything they can, then move on and leave wasteland behind them. Boom and bust. There is no equilibrium.

Painting the picture with just one color isn't it. Multiple things play a role. Yes u need habitat but around here our habitat hasn't changed much since CRP first came out and our bird population has been in the tank since the mid 90s. Quail population has been making a somewhat steady increase last few years but is no where near great. A lot of things in nature have an influence on game bird species. Turkey where a nuisance for some farms in the 90s and there just seems to less and less each years here.

How did those animals survive before 1500? Maybe we should use that same template apply it to the ocean, I dont see killer whales massively overpopulated and wiping out everything. How did the bison in the USA get to such an incredible number if predators just leave wastelands? Maybe you should blame the same group of predators that hunted year round in Idaho to decimate the moose, elk and deer herd in the first place 150 years ago instead of blaming one animal in the ecosystem.

@Danny It has nothing to do with animal rights and everything to do with common sense. Repeating the same argument that has been losing since 1940 isnt the way to win. Maybe my children wont be stuck with just deer, alligator and hogs like me in a state that should have bear, cougar, jaguar, bison, wolves and elk to hunt.

There weren't indians before 1500?

DWC- You know nothing really about me. You think I've never left Minnehaha County...? I've taken deer, antelope, and turkey in over 1/3 of South Dakota's 60+ counties and hunted pheasants in others where I haven't big game hunted. So my boots have walked a lot more South Dakota than you have and I know the geography of the state.

By the way, does the USDA Farm Services Administration people know that the State of Iowa is now running CRP contracts in Iowa...? They might be a bit surprised...

Another general question for people. Is Sec of Ag Tom Vilsack still alive? I haven't heard one peep from him since he became Sniffy's USDA head. Just shows how important agriculture and forestry are to the Democrats.

of course there were, but with primitive weapons and a much smaller population you don't think they had much if any effect on game populations do you?
even with Indians driving hundreds if not thousands of Bison off a cliff at one time there were still tens of million of them around.
Not to mention all that habitat, the little growing of crops the Indians did is less than a drop in a bucket compared to how much land is cropped now.


Passenger Pigeons were the most numerous birds in N.A. before the white man came. We sure managed them right into extinction along with Carolina parakeets, just a mention of modern mans lack of management.

While I don't agree with Matt's assessment that nature is in balance, its a give and take as prey and predator go back and forth, I guess one could say it was a see-saw balance if one was to be generous.
Matt is right about how predators are not a problem is a natural habitat even with primitive man in the mix.
In fact the Indians greatly managed the ecosystem to their benefit and it also benefited wildlife. Unlike modern man.

There are numerous species hunted to extinction by Indians thousands of years ago. I kinda doubt they really took to kindly to the other apex predators competing with (or preying on)themselves either.

Not saying human management is perfect, but nature is by far not an efficient manager.

A lot of critters have expanded in range and population because of man's influence on the ecosystem. Whether that's good or bad is debatable. Buts it's true. One perfect example is pheasants another is whitetail deer. I'd even go so far as to say there's probably more raccoons in KS now than pre white man settlement. I'll even feel confident there were more turkeys and quail in KS in the 20th century than there were pre settlement times.

MattLa. I think your ideology comes from left field.

Cool story. All you ever talk about is bedroom communities by “sufu”. Im glad youve been all over the state bird hunting-thats fun. I prefer to drive to one area in Iowa, where I described seeing an awesome number of birds with the only change being an enormous amount of CRP polling up the last few years. I really could care less which agency “ran” the program nor am i impressed that you do. This wasnt a funding thread, other than my one comment on the ridiculous program in SD. I was sharing my experience with watching the population grow immensely while also observing a very healthy predator population which didnt seem to affect things negatively. Others chimed in on their observations, which varied. Some think habitat others think localized targeting of predators is more important. You chose to attack me right out of the gate because im not in love with your “gov kristi” as you call her. I fo appreciate the history lesson on democratic politicians though. Learned a lot.

I've never put a political sign in my yard. I don't "love" Noem, although she's better on the eyes than most other women politicians. I'm glad you learned some things on the thread.

There's 4 ways that good habitat happens. The first was that it was good habitat all along and it hasn't been changed. The second is that someone worked hard to recreate habitat and don't get much return coin out of the effort. The third is people create good habitat, such as for upland birds to make coin from it-- the paid hunt land here in SD is a prime example of that sort of habitat. The fourth is that land use policy on rural land, much of it coming out of USDA, creates good habitat, sometimes with it not even being the main reason in the beginning.

The start of the fed CRP is the largest example of that. When it was started in 1985, the height of the farm crisis had just passed and the DC crowd thought that pulling 10% of the current national cropland out of production would give some farmers a known steady source of some base coin and maybe bring crop prices up for others. The public selling point was to take "highly" erodible land out of production. A 25% limit of county cropland was the cap and a good many of the counties in parts of the Great Plains filled out in a couple of years with mostly 10-year contracts. There was also a good amount of CRP in Iowa, even in areas outside of the south-central part of the state where the physical geography had more erodible types of land. 1989 was the largest single sign up year. But the actual max total enrollment of CRP was in 2007 with over 36 million acres enrolled. Starting in 2008, there was a big decline in CRP, continuing to decline down to about 18 million acres by the time Trump became president, I think his administration actually expanded CRP some. The rules for sign up became more complex and competitive. That's the reason I mentioned Sniffy's Sec of USDA, I haven't heard them say boo about more CRP expansion even though it would fit into their carbon flux fetish.

The bottom line is that only the fed government can change a lot of land for improved habitat because they have a credit card without limits (so far) and can print their own coin. That system works until everything turns turtle. Some states can also expand good habitat but it generally takes more coin from its citizens than a lot of states will tolerate. State governments can't print their own money but they can tax their people in various ways. Somebody pays to create good habitat if its not there already. Its not a free ride.

People living in civilization talking about natural cycles.

Btw are not pheasants an invasive species?

I have a book from 1898 that has instructions and tips for gold prospectors heading to the Klondike and to Alaska.
One of the tips is; "there is no need to take a rifle as there is no game".

Also a famous Presbyterian pastor started riendeer farming programs for the natives in a couple different places in Alaska at about the same time since game was so scarce.

When Lewis and Clarke headed to the Pacific in about 1805 they nearly starved to death from the time they hit the rocky mountains clear until they got to the Pacific.

So much for letting nature take it's course.

How is a bounty any different then a paid trapper working a area like a DU ADC guy? The bounty in SD is a multi prong plan it’s not just about the bounty only but yes habitat needs some major improvements. The hope is future trappers will continue with the knowledge they are getting through the program now.

It seems like the Russian harvest records disagree heavily with the book and even the Alaskan government said those numbers are undercounted. A study from 1968 speaks about the challenges of physically accessing huntable populations, let alone in the 1800s. Surely the 3M fur seals harvested in 1898 didnt just get be forgotten. Churches have a long history of doing said actions in order to convert people spiritually, I dont disagree with it but to say that it qas because game was scarce is a bit of a fallacy.

Lewis and Clark expedition if we just use 30 which by their own journal said each man ate 9lbs of meat per day, they needed 270lbs of meat. Elk wise they killed 275 before they even crossed the rockies, not to mention the massive amounts of bison and deer they ate. The number of animals estimated from all the journal entries also speaks completely opposite of what you are saying. Keep in mind the numbers below are just estimates on what they killed, not how many they saw.


Deer | 1,111
Elk | 418
Antelope | 69
Bighorn sheep | 38
Bison | 241
Grizzly bears | 43
Black bears | 21
Bobcats | 1
Beaver | 170
Otter | 18
Geese/brant | 121
Ducks | 23
Grouse | 104
Turkeys | 39
Wolves | 12

@Yes Sir. My idealogy comes from sound science and historic proof. I have no qualms how somebody manages their private property, but public land is different. Of course there are more deer, elk, small game than ever before, we killed off the vast majority of predators and cut most of the trees. The problem is that we cant admit our over hunting, over trapping and overfishing 100 years ago have changed the landscape animal wise. We squat on canada all the time(rightfully so in some aspects) but they have saved us animal wise many a time. Not the french canadians they suck. My point is, anti trappers who ironically include a large number of hunters have far more money, legislators and vocalize far better than we do currently. The same argument keeps getting used for x or z but its a losing one and has been for far too long.

Everyone knows good habitat is essential for bird production, but why does it have to be one or the other? What's wrong with good habitat and predator management?

Bounties are reactive or after the fact methodolgies where as creating more and better habitat is a proactive methodology in my opinon. Traveling to a different state where they knowingly created more habitat via CRP is not nearly the same as a bounty system to remove predators from the region be the habitat good or limited. In natural environments the prey species has adapted to predation via higher repro capabilities for the most part.One of the differences in this dicussion is that pheasants are not native to the Midwest and thus may not follow the same cycles as native or indiginous species do. Pheasants are a species that benefit significantly from the actions and habits of humans as do most of their predators.
One other reason for bounties or attempts to reduce certain species may well be to slow the spread of diseases including rabies.
Bryce

Not a thing. I guess my experience says you can make really good habitat and that will reduce the impacts of predators to some degree, whereas if your habitat is poor, but I cannot legally control the entire suite of predators to a large enough degree to make pheasants live and nest successfully in bad habitat. Quite literally I could take out every coyote or bobcat, and a week later have more come over from a neighbor, or the great horned owl that I cannot touch still kills the hens. Few of us have the time, skill or reach or attention to reduce the teeth to the level necessary. What did Delta find a 70% reduction was necessary over a pretty large area to increase duck nesting success? Correct me if I'm wrong I haven't read that study in several years.

My working theory is as you get the habitat up to snuff, it becomes more important to get after the teeth particularly those that can impact nesting. And coyotes pretty much all the time.

I can tell you that you can trap as many predators as you want. Heck, you can clear the entire property of all predators and if the habitat isn’t there, neither will the ground nesting birds.

Two of my properties I trap have awesome habitat. One is a wild quail plantation so of course it’s optimum habitat. The other is just a rich landowner that has seen some serious numbers increase in turkeys and quail.

My last property is another rich landowner who is more into deer management than nesting birds. But, from our talks he’s been slowly creating better habitat for turkeys and quail over the last several years and now has an abundance of turkeys and building up his quail numbers. Went out recently one morning and heard five different coveys from the center of his property. And that wasn’t his best habitat, but it’s getting there.
Does trapping help, most certainly. But, it has to be close to as year round as you can do it. Especially right prior to nesting season. My son caught over 300 coons/possums between mid April through July. He just started back trapping the same property Oct.15 and has already reached 40 coons/possums. When the owner himself seeks him out just to shake his hand for his numbers, he must be doing something right. Their Fall covey count is the highest they’ve ever recorded. In fact, it was so high, the owner had Tall Timbers come out and do their own survey and they came up with almost exactly what the plantation workers had come up with as far as coveys counted.
Trapping certainly works with the right habitat.

If you read my post I said they almost starved to death between the Rocky Mountains and the west coast. Most of the game you are referring to came while crossing the great plains; as you acknowledge in your post. And I will stand by my statement about lack of game in the far north before and after the turn of the 20th century; there is a lot of documentation about that fact.
This lack of game stretched all across northern Canada and Alaska. Read about the rather famous expedition from southern Labrador to the north shore, one of their members died of starvation and the rest of them nearly all died too; late 1800's if I remember correctly.
I knew Raymond Thompson during the last years of his life, his experience was the same in the early 20's.