Gun Dog Forum

I'm getting nervous about this one. It's not that I'm not all for the perservation of our pheasant population, but I'm not sure that this is really the answer, and once the right is taken away--it's often hard to get it back. This bill outlines shortening the season from the last Saturday in October through January 10th TO the last Saturday in October through December 15th...a shortening of 26 days and over a 1/3rd of the current season lost. The 2nd proposal is to limit from 3 roosters to 2 and lower the possession limit to 8. It doesn't effect me as much as others, since I'd rather shoot with a camera anyway, and only nesting season regulations will effect my running of dogs. But I think this is a slippery slope.

http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-I ... ill=HSB564

From the above link, page 2
http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/linc/8 ... oduced.pdf

Discussion on Iowa Outdoors Forum
http://www.iowasportsman.com/forum/view ... pic=706238

wems2371 wrote:I'm getting nervous about this one. It's not that I'm not all for the perservation of our pheasant population, but I'm not sure that this is really the answer, and once the right is taken away--it's often hard to get it back. This bill outlines shortening the season from the last Saturday in October through January 10th TO the last Saturday in October through December 15th...a shortening of 26 days and over a 1/3rd of the current season lost. The 2nd proposal is to limit from 3 roosters to 2 and lower the possession limit to 8. It doesn't effect me as much as others, since I'd rather shoot with a camera anyway, and only nesting season regulations will effect my running of dogs. But I think this is a slippery slope.

http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-I ... ill=HSB564

From the above link, page 2
http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/linc/8 ... oduced.pdf

Discussion on Iowa Outdoors Forum
http://www.iowasportsman.com/forum/view ... pic=706238

Plus it is well proven reducing the season has little if any effect. But it makes people feel good that have little knowledge of the real problem.

Ezzy

it won't matter what the limits and seasons are if there are no birds to go after.

It easier and faster for them to change seasons and limits than it is to address the real problem of habitat and the conflict it has with farming.

terrylndrs wrote:It easier and faster for them to change seasons and limits than it is to address the real problem of habitat and the conflict it has with farming.

100% true

terrylndrs wrote:it won't matter what the limits and seasons are if there are no birds to go after.

It easier and faster for them to change seasons and limits than it is to address the real problem of habitat and the conflict it has with farming.

What should they do about this conflict? Tell the farmer to stop trying to make a living, get a job in town and let the farm grow up to weeds? I agree there is a conflict of sorts but now that we have it identifies what do you suggest they do?

Ezzy

ezzy333 wrote:

terrylndrs wrote:it won't matter what the limits and seasons are if there are no birds to go after.

It easier and faster for them to change seasons and limits than it is to address the real problem of habitat and the conflict it has with farming.

What should they do about this conflict? Tell the farmer to stop trying to make a living, get a job in town and let the farm grow up to weeds? I agree there is a conflict of sorts but now that we have it identifies what do you suggest they do?

Ezzy

I would say do the same thing with what they did with the wetlands act. We can't take back whats already been destroyed, however be could probably protect what little cover is left.

with crop and land prices today it's almost impossible. Only way would be to make the wildlife as valuable to the farmers as their crops. like in Africa, which will never happen with a bird. It's going to be a losing battle for the birds

I agree something needs to be done but think this bill falls short of defining the real solution for bird re population. Birds don't equal $$$$$$ for Iowa.

As I drive around I see waterways and headland areas back in production, strip cropping all but disappeared, creek lines being cleared, ground coming out of the CRP program at a steady clip, pastures too steep for goats with corn growing on them. I guess it will take more than just loosing wildlife, perhaps another dust bowl would help open peoples eyes.The higher the land price goes, the less useful an acre "tied up" by a conservation practice appears to those farming them, even though the inverse is probably true.

How do you solve Greed?

As always, follow the money, or follow the cause (animal rights activists). Just saying... Once a freedom or right is taken away it is very hard to get it back. Personally, I am a member of PETA (people eating tasty animals). Lets find more uses for corn and soy beans. That will be the end of CRP, sadly.

How do you solve Greed?

Great question but if we are to solve it we all need to understand what greed really is. I think the best definition I can come up with is when someone else tries to make money it is greed.

We can solve this particular case of greed by passing a law that all farmers have to idle 30% of their land thus putting them back on welfare. So to solve that problem plus being fair to everyone else other than me will have to donate an extra 30% of their income to help feed the farmers, manage all of the renewed wildlife areas, and support all of the added government employees that it will take to handle the money.

That didn't take long to solve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :roll: :roll:

Ezzy

The one thing I HATE is you go to the pheasant forever banquets and You see farms there talking about how they support pheasants forever and give money but when you go out to their farm every waterway is plowed up, fields are farmed as close to the ditches as possible and they spray so many chemicals everything is killed but their crops. How is that supporting the cause. Talk is cheap! Maybe I'm wrong but only spending $50 for a banquet meal ticket isn't supporting the cause.

With the land values today, i'm surprised the government doesn't start selling all the public ground off to pay for the budget.

I don't know what the answer is but unless something changes, we will only be hunting on game farms.

When is the last time someone has shot a limit of quail in Iowa on wild birds? Maybe very southern part of the state but i bet there isn't many...

Well, we could cut millions of dollars of subsidy money and put it towards repairing/offsetting the ecological damage farming does.

How about farmers quit mowing ditches and waterways purely for the sake of vanity. Happens all the time around me. At the bottom of my lane is a 1+ acre of old farmstead--no house or buildings--just grassland with a windmill. I asked our neighbor early in the season if he would leave that untouched so we could dog train in it. He said he was happy to do so. It got mowed at least 4x this year by his relative who leases the surrounding cropland, and each time we got an apology from the neighbor, but it never stopped. The worst part is that the guy would mow the mile long ditch on his way to our place and back to the current farmstead. Thankfully there's still a fence for about 1/3 of that, for the moment anyway. So he was forced to leave about 1.5' on either side of the fence, otherwise he mowed right up to the growing corn stalks. How important is that paltry strip he was forced to leave? Let's just say that one of my dogs pointed a hen out of it the other day, when I was running them through the field, off the ATV. We have 6 houses on my road, and 3 of them are ditch mowers.

Being that I have hunting dogs, the neighboring farmers ask me from time to time, how it's going and if I've seen any birds. It always ends in how 20 years ago the area was pheasant rich. Then it comes down to blaming it all on predatory animals. Really? So herbicides that kill every seed bearing weed, pesticides that nuke a field, mowing ditches, burning ditches, farming ditches because one extra row is necessary...even though the taxpayers will be funding the county scooping that same ditch in 10 years has absolutely nothing to do with it? And then there's my absolute favorite, tiling. Tiling allows places that weren't meant to have crops, to be cropped. Tiling can literally change the landscape. The last statistic I saw from 2010, says that 39% of Iowa's 23 million acres of corn and soybean fields have been drained with an estimated 800,000 MILES of tile. Never mind the studies that show nitrates and such leaving from those shiny corrugated tubes.

I'm not anti-farmer, because I realize the food source that is provided, and can see it in my own house--from food on my shelf, to dog food, bird food, etc. but I think there is very little acknowledgment by most that farm, of what it does to the landscape. I give huge kudos to those that no-till, leave buffer strips and erosion waterways, don't feel the need to rip every tree out of a creekline, etc. Those guys are my heros, but unfortunately that's on a voluntary basis.

*sorry for some of my repeatedness Terry, I was composing while you posted.

Just a couple links, also shared on Iowa Outdoors Forum.

http://www.iowadnr.gov/Portals/idnr/upl ... weknow.pdf

Landscape: Iowa’s landscape is dominated
by agriculture. Only 1 percent is owned
by the public and can be managed
by the DNR for wildlife conservation.
Private landowners, not DNR, control
wildlife conservation on the remaining
99 percent of the land.

http://www.iowadnr.gov/Portals/idnr/upl ... t_iamn.pdf

An Iowa DNR study link, that makes me wonder how this Bill 564 could ever get passed, and what it's based on scientifically.