Vol. 19, No. 12 
Page 4 
1. Aggressive harassment of prairie chickens by pheasant cocks 
(MWRL 19(2):2-3)- 
2. The threat of interbreeding > resulting in sterile hybrid progeny. 
3. Probable competition for space on the sanctuaries. 
4. Parasitism of prairie chicken nests (MWRL 19(3):3). 
5. Possible abandonment of prairie chicken nests, due to pheasants 
(MWRL 19(8):3-4). 
6 . Attraction of hunters to prairie chicken sanctuaries. 
7* Adverse public relations due to efforts by project personnel to 
control pheasants on sanctuaries. 
An effort was made during the spring of 1976 to reduce pheasant numbers 
on the sanctuaries by livetrapping in crowing territories, using live game- 
farm pheasants as bait. The plan was to transplant pheasants to Sam Parr 
State Park, about 6 miles from the nearest sanctuary, as an aspect of local 
public relations. The live traps involved two modified versions of the 
Stoddard cock-and-hen trap that is effective for bobwhite quail during the 
breeding season. To our knowledge, this technique has not been tried on 
pheasants. 
Six cock- pheasants and six hens were supplied for this experiment by 
the 0 es Plaines Game Farm on 1 April 1 976 . 
Trapping was attempted during 6 days in April, 2 days in May, and 
1 day in June, representing a total of 120 trap-hours. Usually, one to four 
traps were baited and set from about 0430 hours until about 1100 hours. On 
one occasion six traps were set about 0430 hours and left out overnight until 
about 1000 hours the next day. Only one capture was made and this bird had 
escaped by the time the trap was checked. In this instance, the wild cock 
pheasant escaped from one of two tip-top traps set on each side of an elevated 
cage containing a bait hen. 
Thus, our first attempt at this approach to livetrapping pheasants 
was disappointing. At this time we are undecided whether to try the technique 
during one more spring. In contrast to the prairie chicken population, which 
has shown three consecutive declines since I 973 , annual changes in numbers of 
crowing cock pheasants at Bogota have shown either increases or stability 
during the same period. Also, the rate of prairie chicken nests parasitized 
by pheasants increased to 8.9 percent in 1976— the highest recorded since 
1970 when the first case was discovered. It is hoped that some alternative 
to shooting and the associated adverse public relations can be devised for 
pheasant control on the prairie chicken sanctuaries. 
