Till the Birds Come Home
For 20 years Pheasants Forever has been working to expand habitat and increase pheasant populations.
By Dennis Anderson
Twenty-some years ago, when I first pondered the notion of organizing Minnesota pheasant hunters into a group that eventually would become Pheasants Forever, I wrote the sentence, "We’ll have roosters marching up Fourth Street,’’ meaning in front of the old Pioneer Press building in downtown St. Paul.
Hyperbolic as those words were, they reflected my hope for a brighter future for Minnesota ringnecks—birds that since their introduction to the state in the early 1900s had bravely withstood freezing winters, wet springs, and blistering summers, but had suffered immeasurably under the 20-bottom plows and other machinery that clean farming had foisted upon America’s Corn Belt beginning in the 1960s.
I had been appointed outdoor columnist at the Pioneer Press and Dispatch in 1980, and that year, as in previous years, I opened the pheasant season in west-central Minnesota. Joining me were friends who in the early 1970s had graduated with me from the University of Minnesota, Morris.
For us, the initial weekend of the pheasant season was an opportunity to drive dusty back roads toward state wildlife management areas and federal waterfowl production lands in search of the wily ringneck, just as we had done as students. Scatterguns in hand, dogs ahead, we eagerly pushed small wood lots, fence lines, and sloughs, anticipating the flush of a game bird so spectacularly florid it could make a peacock blush.
But changes to Minnesota’s farmland landscape were accelerating, and few of the alterations were positive for pheasants. Wetland drainage, which first claimed Minnesota wildlife habitat in the 1880s, was continuing, seemingly unabated. Grasslands also disappeared as drain tiles were installed to whisk water from low spots that historically were thought to be untillable. Also vanishing were the groves and wood lots that for generations had bordered Minnesota’s countless rural homesteads, as the owners of these barns, coops, and clapboard houses moved to town to work for wages—leaving behind bigger farms and fewer pheasants.
At the time, Joe Alexander was commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, and in a conversation one day he confided he had little hope for Minnesota pheasants. "There will always be some,’’ he said, "but they’ll never be as abundant as they were.’’
Naive as I was in those days about the bare-knuckle, bottom-dollar politics that can form the underbelly of American agricultural policy, and naive as I also was about other factors affecting America’s farmlands, I disagreed. With luck and hard work, I told Commissioner Alexander, Minnesota’s pheasant heydays could be relived.
My vision of those great times—when pheasants were plentiful in Minnesota from the Iowa border north nearly to Fargo—was admittedly Rockwellian. Having heard and read stories about pheasant openers when pancake breakfasts and family reunions were as commonplace as limits of birds, I thought that if only the state’s legions of pheasant lovers could be united to work toward a common goal of habitat preservation and development, Minnesotans could again—at least figuratively—see roosters "marching up Fourth Street.’’
The Right Mix of People
Today, as Pheasants Forever celebrates its 20th anniversary with a national membership that tops 100,000, I credit luck and hard work for the organization’s founding and its many successes.
But deserving of still more credit, perhaps, is serendipity—the sort of intangible, positive karma, if you will, that occasionally guides certain undertakings.
I say this because the timing couldn’t have been better to form a pheasant group. Also, the idea attracted just the right mix of people—among them Norb Berg, then deputy chairman of Control Data Corp., whose business acumen, connections, and advice helped nurture the group from concept to creation. Commissioner Alexander also was important in ways perhaps he never knew, in that he challenged me, if unwittingly, to do something for pheasants.
Alexander also gave me two names that proved important as I organized Pheasants Forever’s first board of directors. One was Dave Vesall of Stillwater, retired DNR fish and game chief whose counsel and support were invaluable. Another was Bob Larson, a Wayzata attorney who secured the group’s tax-exempt status and would serve as a board member.
The late, great Jimmy Robinson, whose fund-raising for Ducks Unlimited was legendary, also helped. One day in his living room I told him I needed some money to get the group going. Immediately he phoned the late Bob Naegele, a wealthy Twin Cities businessman.
"I got a kid here who needs $3,000 for pheasants!’’ Jimmy bellowed. "He’ll call you! Give it to him!’’ Jimmy then rang the late Vern Aanenson, owner of Old Dutch Foods, and ordered him to cough up a similar amount of dough.
My bully pulpit at the Pioneer Press and Dispatch was critical because it allowed me to attract high-profile, credible Minnesota sportsmen and women to the cause. One was Bud Grant, the Vikings coach. Others included brothers Bud and Ted Burger, whose Twin Cities sporting goods stores bore their name. Also, famed trap shooters and dog trainers Chuck and Loral I Delaney of Anoka, and—among many others—now-retired DNR Fish and Wildlife director Roger Holmes.
My writings also caught the eye of hunters from greater Minnesota. Doug Lovander of Willmar jumped on the bandwagon and helped form the Kandiyohi County chapter. Similarly, Pete Fischer and others in Stearns County founded a chapter.
Serendipitous as well was the involvement of Jeff Finden, an occasional lunch partner of mine who, in time, would leave his position as national advertising director at the Pioneer Press and Dispatch to become Pheasants Forever’s first executive director. Working initially from his basement, he took up his charge from the board (of which he also was a member) to grow the organization, which he did, sometimes exponentially, for 18 years.
Changing Times, Changing Goals
Pheasants Forever was incorporated Aug. 5, 1982. By 1983 it had achieved its first goal of persuading the Legislature to require pheasant hunters to purchase a Minnesota pheasant habitat stamp to generate funds for habitat enhancement. The next goal was to organize as a statewide group, then as a national organization.
This last effort, seemingly also guided by serendipity, was aided by the hiring of two people who are still with Pheasants Forever. One was Jim Wooley, who had been the chief pheasant biologist for Iowa. The other was Howard Vincent, an accountant who was hired to guide the finances of Pheasants Forever as it grew.
Today, Wooley is Pheasants Forever’s senior regional wildlife biologist, while Vincent is its chief executive officer, replacing Finden in 1999.
In the years since Pheasants Forever’s founding, its members have raised approximately $225 million nationally, about $17 million in Minnesota, some $15 million of which has been dedicated to habitat development and preservation in this state.
But are roosters marching up Fourth Street in downtown St. Paul?
Sadly, they are not.
In fact, a critic might argue that success has proved elusive. In 1982, for instance, Minnesota put in the field 125,000 pheasant hunters who harvested 267,000 roosters; while these many years later, in 2001, only 85,000 uplanders chased pheasants in the state, harvesting 267,000 roosters.
Moreover, August roadside counts in 1982 found about 59 birds per 100 miles of routes surveyed, compared with an average of 50 birds per 100 miles in 2001–02, this despite the fact that Pheasants Forever’s 18,000 Minnesota members have completed more than 17,000 habitat projects on private land and purchased more than 18,000 acres of land that has been donated to the DNR or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for public wildlife areas.
Was Joe Alexander correct? Are pheasants doomed to a marginal existence in Minnesota?
Maybe.
But maybe not.
It could be argued, after all, that Minnesota pheasants would be in poorer condition yet if Pheasants Forever had not been founded. It could also be argued that the most important outcome of the group’s founding is the strong voice for upland conservation it presents when farm policies are developed in Washington—a voice that was critical in formulating the first Conservation Reserve Program in 1985.
As for me, older now and less naive too, I view all of this no longer from downtown St. Paul, but from Minneapolis, where I am an outdoor columnist with the Star Tribune.
Having chaired Pheasants Forever’s board in its first years and served on its executive committee for 15 years, I am no longer affiliated with the organization, except by dint of my lifetime membership.
That said, I remain keenly interested in upland conservation, and wetland conservation too. And I eagerly await The Next Big Thing that will improve the status of both.
Perhaps it will come in the further advent of genetically engineered crops, which might increase yields while reducing the amount of land under cultivation.
Or maybe it will appear in the form of partnerships between conservation-minded farmers and urban sportsmen and women who buy milk, produce, eggs, and other foodstuffs directly from them.
Or maybe, just maybe, The Next Big Thing will be the conservation brainchild of someone too young and too naive to know it won’t work.
Let’s hope so.
Dennis Anderson is a columnist and outdoors team leader at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. He and his wife, Jan, and their sons, Trevor, 9, and Cole, 7, live in the St. Croix River Valley.