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2. Man}pu1 at ion of Pheasant Habitat 
Vol. 8, No. 10 
Page 2 
G. B. Joselyn 
Of the questions raised regarding the feasibility of seeding roadsides for 
nesting pheasants, two seem to receive the most attention: (1) the possibility 
of excessive road kills as a result of the proximity of the seedings to vehicular 
traffic, and (2) the possibility of the seedings becoming travel lanes for mammalian 
predators, with a resulting high rate of nest destruction. 
During the past three summers, along 9 miles of seeded roadsides on the Sibley 
Study Area, road kills of pheasants have averaged approximately 1.5 per summer, 
only about 0.2 kill per mile of seeded roadside per summer. The low level of road 
kills along seeded roadsides is probably associated, at least in part, with the 
relatively low rates of speed at which traffic moves over cr.e country roads along 
which the seedings are established. 
While road kills have so far been of little consequence, mammal predation on 
nests established in the seeded roadsides has been of greater significance. The 
percentages of established nests preyed upon by mammals were 34 . 1 , 57 « 3 , and 46.1 
during 1963, 1964, and 1965* respectively. During the same 3 years, the percentages 
of established nests destroyed by mammals on the 100 , 10 -acre plots searched each 
year in conjunction with studies of pheasant populations and land use were 24.9, 
27-8, and 16.8. Because it is impossible in most instances to determine whether 
or not nests have been abandoned prior to destruction by mammals, it is probably 
incorrect to assume that predation by mammals was responsible for all these un¬ 
successful nests on the roadsides or on the 100, 10-acre plots. Mammal predation 
figures taken by themselves for these 3 years appear to show a significantly higher 
^ rate of predation on the seeded roadsides than in other cover types on the study 
area. Although this is probably the case, other factors should be taken into 
account. In each of these 3 years farm machinery destroyed 36-39 percent of the 
nests in the other cover types, but less than 1 percent of the nests on the seeded 
roadsides. Without this extensive destruction from farm machinery, mammal destruc¬ 
tion in the other cover types could be significantly higher. Thus, it is not known 
whether the discrepancy between the two sets of figures is conditional rather than 
actual. 
The study of mammal destruction of pheasant nests is further complicated by 
the past practice of merely listing the predator that destroyed each nest as a 
"large 1 or "small" mammal, with no attempt made to distinguish among various specie? 
of mammals possibly responsible for the destruction. It has been assumed that faim 
dogs and cats were among the most prominent predators. During I 965 , criteria 
established for diagnosing predators responsible for breaking up ruffed grouse 
nests were used in an attempt to determine which species of mammals were responsible 
for nest predation on the seeded roadsides. Of the 24 nests preyed upon by mammals, 
on the seeded roadsides, 17 ( 70*8 percent) were judged to have been destroyed bv 
foxes and/or raccoons, 5 (20.8 percent) by skunks, and one each (4.2 percent each) 
by ground squirrels and unknown mammals. Although it is not suggested that the 
above criteria are strictly applicable in all instances to pheasant eggs, they 
appeared to rit to a striking degree most cases of mammal destruction of pheasant 
nests on roadsides in 1965• The data reveal a complete lack of nest destruction 
by farm dogs and cats. Because only "wild" predators appear to be implicated in 
nest destruction, the degree of predation on seeded roadsides may, to some extent, 
01 be dependent on the population fluctuations of the primary prey species--in this 
case foxes and raccoons. 
