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NATHRAl HISTORY SURVEY 
JUN 1 2 1968 
LIBRARY 
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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 
May, 1060 
Vol. 11, No 5 
1. Pheasant Populations and Land Use S.,L. Etter, R. E. Greenberg 
The responses to questionnaires requesting information on hunting pressures 
and kills during the regular pheasant hunting season and the 2-week extension, in 
1067, by hunters who had returned tags or bands from cocks killed on the Sibley 
Study Area were discussed in a previous report (Monthly Wildlife Research Letter 
11 (2):1)- Similar questionnaires were sent to 292 hunters who indicated on the 
regular hunter-questionnaires issued by the Department of Conservation that they 
had hunted pheasants during 1967- 
A total of 170* hunters replied to these questionnaires Nine of the responding 
hunters could not remember the number of days they hunted during each period, nor 
the number of cocks they killed The 169 hunters who supplied complete information 
indicated that they hunted 792 days during the regular season and 300 days during 
the extended period The reported kills were 376 cocks and 136 cocks during the 
regular season and the extended period, respectively. These data indicate an 
increase of 38 percent in hunting effort and an increase of 35 percent in the kill 
over that which would have occurred without the season extension 
The Sibley sample indicated increases of 53 percent and 57 percent in hunting 
effort and kill, respectively, resulting from the extended season The greater 
hunting pressure during the extended period, indicated by the Sibley sample as 
compared with the statewide sample, resulted primarily from the proportionately 
greater number of hunters that hunted during this period (72 percent, Sibley sample; 
54 percent, statewide sample). 
2. Manipul at ion of Pheasant Habitat G- B. Joselyn 
During December 1966, questionnaires were sent to the Chief Highway Engineers 
in 13 states and to two turnpike commissions Included in the survey were the 
states of Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, 
North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the Ohio and Pennsyl¬ 
vania turnpikes Portions of each of these states possess sizable populations of 
pheasants. The primary purposes of the questionnaire were (I) to obtain information 
on current practices of highway roadside maintenance and (2) to determine the 
attitude of highway administrators regarding management of highway roadsides for 
nesting birds! All 15 questionnaires were returned. 
Data from the questionnaires indicate the methods of roadside vegetation 
management currently employed in the states polled. Of the 15 respondents, 5 
(33 percent) reported that highway roadsides were mowed from fence to fence, 
beginning with the first mowing each summer Six (40 percent) engineers reported 
that roadsides were mowed beyond the ditch only once, in late summer, and four 
(27 percent) indicated that no mowing was done beyond the ditch. Thus, 10 of 15 
respondents could be considered as employing minimum mowing schedules beyond the 
d i tch 
