OCR Text |
Show Upland Birds Needing Food After each heavy snowfall, the Division of Fish and Game receives manv innnirios f persons concerned about the welfare of upland game birds. Pheasants and quail are the game birds for which concern is most often expressed. These birds have a high annual reproductive re-productive rate and also a high annual mortality. The number of pheasants or quail in a population pop-ulation is primarily dependent upon reproductive success during dur-ing the spring nesting season, and reproductive success is usually higher when parent populations pop-ulations are lower. This tends to compensate for unusually high losses from severe winter weather or otner causes. Feeding of wildlife in winter is one of the oldest and most discussed problems in game management. Most conservation conserva-tion agencies agree that winter feeding is neither biologically sound nor economically feasible. fea-sible. Most game birds are able to fend for themselves during the winter if they have suitable habitat. Winter losses of game birds are always greatest in poor or marginal habitat. Winter Win-ter feeding, even in good habitat, causes concentrations of birds which exposes them to predators pred-ators and facilitates the spread of disease. The best evidence that winter feeding is unnecessary is the fact that the pheasant population popula-tion in Utah has survived for several decades without an articifial feeding program. In localized areas, populations have diminished over the years, |