MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Vol, 1, No* 3 
Page 3 
for poison by lead or arsenic, and for negri bodies indicating rabies* 
Continued searching for den trees on the raccoon-wood duck study 
areas near Havana brought the total number located to 102* The number of acres 
per den tree is 9*9* Treatment of den trees with Tanglefoot as a means of 
keeping raccoons from using the trees was begun* 
Of four female raccoons examined for breeding condition, two were 
pregnant. One of the pregnant females caught in late February in Piatt County 
had three uterine swellings indicating the presence of newly implanted embryos* 
The second pregnant female, taken in Champaign County on March 13th, had 9 
large embryos* It is estimated that these young would have been born no later 
than the end of March. Three adult males were sexually active* 
W-61-R-1 F* Greeley, J. Ellis 
The rural mail carriers' counts of pheasants in January were mapped* 
Thirty-three per cent of the 38,188 birds tallied by the carriers were seen in 
Ford and Livingston counties; a year ago 1*0 per cent were seen in these two 
counties* Other areas with high counts were western Iroquois county, eastern 
McLean, and Marshall, Woodford, LaSalle, DeKalb, McHenry and Stephenson counties. 
Preparations were begun for another mail carrier count to be made in late April* 
All the rural mail carrier data are now being edited for machine processing* 
Crowing counts were initiated on the Bellmont and Neoga study areas* 
During six counts made at Neoga, the rate of crowing increased as the length of 
daylight increased* Pheasants were not heard to crow on a count attempted on 
March 7, while on March 28, 16 individual cocks were heard to call 22 times in 
12 stops* At Bellmont on March 26, three cocks were heard to call four times 
in 15 stops* 
Data obtained during the hunting season on the Neoga area and other 
information were used to determine the preseason population ( 76-79 cocks: 68 - 
8 I 4 . hens), the post season population (lU-17 cocks: 68 - 8 U hens), the per cent of 
the cocks harvested ( 78-82 per cent), and the number of young produced per 
adult hen (U* 3 )• 
During the period from April - November, 1997, pheasants released as 
adults in the spring and summer of 1996 vie re seen in greater percentages than 
those released as juveniles during the same period* Cocks released by the 
gentle method were seen in greater percentages than were cocks released by the 
violent method. The reverse was true in the case of hens. 
