Tony Dean, on of the Midwest’s greatest sportsmen and conservationists, reviews the new Farm Bill, and it’s not good. Here’s Tony’s article posted for the Argus Leader on September 10, 2008. Read this and other articles at TonyDean.com.
The 2008 Farm Bill that the Senate passed didn’t offer much for conservation, but the Senate Appropriations Committee just whacked off another $331 billion, an 8 percent cut of Farm Bill Conservation titles.
We’ve learned the cuts apply to five conservation provisions: the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (Equip) losing 22 percent, the Grazing Reserve Program, 23 percent, Agrocultural Management Assistance Program, 33 percent, and the Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) also getting a significant cutback in funding.
The Farm and Ranchland Protection program also was cut 2 percent.
All of this has raised hackles at the Environmental Working Group, a frequent critic of the farm bill.
“These are serious cuts,” said Craig Cox, the Midwest Vice President of the EWG’s new office in Ames, Iowa. “To put them in the proper context, you must realize the Farm Bill has already reduced the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) from 39 to 32 million acres. It’s all another slap in the face of sportsmen and those who enjoy wildlife and want good water quality, and if the Senate gets away with this, citizens can expect a continuation of similar occurrences.”
One Senate staffer told us he believed the conservation titles underwent the cuts to make more money available to commodity programs.
Cox added, “If sportsmen ignore these cuts, they can expect it to happen again the next time around, and they need to send members of the appropriations committee a very strong message.”
Prairie grouse prospects good
The Game, Fish & Parks Department does not conduct brood surveys on grouse as they do on pheasants, but Tom Kirschenman, who oversees upland game management, says he anticipates a good season.“We rely mostly on spring lek counts, and some information gathered via surveys from grouse hunters following the season, but the timely rains and generally good habitat conditions that resulted have me fairly optimistic,” Kirschenman said.
More than any other upland game bird in the Dakotas, grouse are tailor-made for the owner of pointing dogs. Unlike pheasants, they hold well for a point.
The bonus upland bird for grouse and pheasant hunters is the gray partridge, and while there are isolated pockets of these small upland birds, numbers are generally low.
Gray partridge were more numerous in the 70s and 80s, and the current downward trend in their population mirrors what seems to be occurring throughout their range.
Little is known about Huns, and most biologists can’t explain why these birds have not responded positively to the good habitat conditions found across the state.
Meanwhile, duck hunters should enjoy good hunting in northeastern South Dakota, though overall numbers are likely to be down from a year ago, yet still above the long term average. For the most part, water conditions were poor throughout most of the prairie pothole region, and the loss of CRP has hurt duck populations.
Ups and downs are a part of hunting, but one thing is certain: the past 15 years have provided some of the best bird hunting in modern times, and it is doubtful older hunters will live long enough to see a repeat of these years.
