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NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY 
APR 16 1968 
MONTHLY WILDLIFE RESEARCH LETTER LIBRARY 
Department of Conservation and Natural History Survey, Cooperating 
Glen C. Sanderson and Helen C. Schultz, Editors 
i 
Urbana, Illinois 
March, 1968 
Vo I. II, No. 3 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use S. L. Etter, R. E. Greenberg 
On the assumption that mortality due to causes other than hunting is equal 
in both sexes of juvenile and adult pheasants, it should be possible to calcu¬ 
late the proportionate harvest of cock pheasants in each age group from the 
changes in sex ratios obtained during the prehunt and posthunt trapping 
periods. By using this method of estimation, it was calculated that 74 per¬ 
cent of the juvenile cocks and 56 percent of the adult cocks alive at the 
beginning of the hunting season in 1962 were harvested. The estimated harvest 
rates in 1963 wer*e 65 and 50 percent for juvenile and adult cocks, respectively. 
Although the statistical validity of these differences could not be demonstrated, 
the data strongly suggested that juvenile cocks were more vulnerable to hunt¬ 
ing than were adults. 
It was pointed out in a previous report (Monthly Wildlife Research Letter 
9(10):1) that the age ratios of cocks harvested during the hunting season were 
nearly equal to the age ratios of cocks captured during the prehunt trapping 
period. At that time the similarity of the age ratios obtained by these two 
methods was interpreted as indicating that juvenile and adult cocks were 
equally vulnerable to trapping and to hunting. Although juveniles are probably 
more vulnerable than adults to both hunting and trapping, it now appears more 
likely that the agreement of the age ratios obtained by trapping and by hunt¬ 
ing resulted from a higher vulnerability of juvenile cocks to hunting than to 
trapping, which nearly compensated for an assumed higher juvenile mortality 
rate during the period from trapping until the opening of the hunting season. 
2. ManipuI ation of pheasant Habitat G. B. Joselvn 
During the period February 20-22, Department of Conservation biologists 
contacted farmers on the Ford County Management Unit to seek permission for 
the seeding of roadsides, scheduled for August 1968. Of the 65 farmers con¬ 
tacted, 58 (approximately 90 percent) agreed to take part in the program, 3 
declined, and 4 were undecided. The extent to which farmers are willing to 
participate in the program is encouraging, and represents a greater degree 
of acceptance than was expected. The roadside acreage on the farms involved 
in the program is over 93 percent of the total acreage for which permission 
to seed was requested. The proportion will increase accordingly should any 
of the four undecided farmers ultimately agree to participate in the program. 
3• Factors Influencinq Distribution and Abundance of P heasants W. L. Anderson 
Final analyses of data accumulated during the investigation of possible 
effects of inorganic ions on the distribution of pheasants have revealed 
some interesting differences among birds from good, fair, and poor pheasant 
