The Effect of Farm Crops on the Production of The Ring-Necked Pheasant in Iowa

A great number of factors have been brought out and used as reasons for the recent decline in populations of the ring-necked pheasant. (Phasianus colchicus torquatus). Research workers are inclined to look for some remote factors that might affect all game populations. Factors that operate over a period of many years perhaps. Are cyclic influences in operation, and do they cause changes in pheasant populations? Are pheasants subject to the fate of many other exotics in that they reach high numbers in areas where they become established only to be followed by a regression in numbers that are never replaced? These are long-range views to the problem. We also blame the weather during the nesting season but we know the pheasant hen is persistent in her efforts to bring off a brood of chicks. We give the fox more than his due amount of credit, but we have evidence that where good habitat is available for pheasants, fox depredation is negligible. This paper is intended as a more basic approach by bringing out the effects of farming operations and cropping systems on pheasant habitat and, more particularly, nesting habitat