Farm bill could hurt bird hunting

Hunters have had an easy time getting their limits of birds this fall So it s hard to think of what could jeopardize the pheasant and duck populations But as Donnell Preskey reports wildlife officials are fearful that decisions made on the Farm Bill could take a shot at our outdoors Dan Hare s job is to keep pheasants in North Dakota He s with pheasants forever But he says what he and other hunters are up against is more than he alone can fight Dan Hare Pheasants Forever Right now is a critical time for anyone interested in the outdoors anybody interested in pheasants waterfowl deer to make sure contact representatives to let them know how important CRP is to them The U S Senate is making decisions on the farm bill Part of the legislation is the Conservation Reserve Program or CRP Wildlife officials say if the amount of CRP in the state is decreased our wildlife will suffer Greg Link ND Game amp amp Fish People younger than 40 have a hard time remembering what hunting was like prior to crp It wasn t even close Mott country - not pheasant capitol by no means Link says they want CRP to continue at it s current level but with more money so farmers have a reason to participate Link When producer is looking at staying - contract expiring and looking at good farm prices right now we re saying have a competitive program So farmers can choose that option To understand the importance of CRP - Link and Hare say you have to look at the past Hare The harvest of pheasants see a peak in the late 40 s after the war era There s a lot of idle land pheasants had the opportunity to use that idle land Then all the sudden we came back got industrialized in the 50 s and seen a small reduction of pheasants We put a program in at that time called the soil bank program Similar to what CRP is today But then that too ended and pheasant populations fell so badly two pheasant seasons were closed because there weren t enough birds CRP started up in 1983 and by 1985 there were more pheasants Last year nearly a million birds were harvested Link Once crp goes away they re going to find can t sustain pheasant populations like they have year to year So it s not going to be the same So if feel strong need to send message now The farm bill is expected to be before the full Senate next week In Bismarck Donnell Preskey KX News Greg Link with North Dakota Game and Fish says prior to September 30th there were 3 4 million acres of CRP in North Dakota A quarter of a million of that is being removed and tilled up In the next three years three hundred thousand acres are expiring Of the North Dakota producers who are up to renew their CRP enrollment between 2007 and 2010 85 percent stay in the program