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MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
Urbana, Illinois 
November, 1974 
Vol. 17, No. 11 
Pheasant Populations and Land Use q. B. Joselyn 
Hunting pressure on the Sibley study area during the opening weekend of 
the season in 1974 was quite light. Conditions for hunting on the opening day 
were good, as fields were dry, approximately 80 percent of the corn had been 
harvested, and fall plowing was not far advanced, approaching perhaps 25-30 
percent of the soybean and corn stubble acreage. Steady rains all during Sunday, 
the second day of the season, greatly reduced the hunting effort. 
Hunter success on the opening weekend this year was the poorest in the 
past 13 years. The 115 hunters that were interviewed on the study area on the 
opening weekend hunted 430.5 man-hours and killed 52 pheasants ( 8.3 hours per 
bird). In only 2 other years since 1962 has bagging a pheasant on the study 
area taken 8 hours or longer (8.0 hours in 1965 , 8.1 hours in I 967 ). The number 
of hours in the field to kill a pheasant, 1 962 through 1973 , were, respectively: 
2.2, 2 . 7 , 2.1, 8.0, 6-9> 8.1, 5*0, 4*3> 4.7> 3*4, 6.2, and 7*4 hours. 
The lengthy time required to bag a bird this year (and in 1 965 ) was mostly 
the result of low pheasant numbers on the study area (MWRL 17(9):1-2). Although 
pheasants were relatively abundant in 1967^ standing corn and soybeans and wet 
field conditions combined to decrease hunter success. 
Ecolog y and Management of Squirrels 
C. M. Nixon, 
S. P. Havera 
A comparison between the estimated statewide squirrel harvest and the 
available forest land in Illinois strongly suggests that the present harvest 
estimate is much too high. We do not believe that Illinois squirrel hunters 
are killing nearly one squirrel per 1.5 acres of forest every year--not a single 
state approaches such a squirrel harvest. In fact, 206,000 Missouri squirrel 
hunters hunt some 15 million acres of forest and kill about the same number of 
squirrels (2.7 million) as the estimated kill in Illinois, which has only 3.8 
million acres of squirrel range. Thus, the Illinois kill, on the basis of an 
acre of range, is nearly five times that of Missouri. It is doubtful that the 
Illinois squirrel hunter is that much more proficient than his Missouri 
counterpart. 
Attempts to improve our knowledge of the Illinois squirrel resource must 
begin by improving the accuracy of mail-survey estimates of the squirrel harvest. 
