| Show SHOWS PHE 6 SIR AS WELL fl I 1 do at least as much good as damage ifield if held down As the time for the annual opening of the pheasant shooting season draws near interest is revived in the much disputed question as to whether or not these game birds do more damage to the farmers crops than the amount of good they do in eating 1 in harmful insects at a recent meeting me eting of the sevier county fish i and game protective association this paper was requested to make a summary of a bulletin issued some two years ngo ago by clarence cottom of brigham young university ver sity many sevier county farmers claim that there are many more pheasants this year than ever before during the year 45 birds were taken from various agricultural areas of utah and an effort was made to secure specimens from farms where they were reported as doing much damage at least one bird was collected each month of the year and a careful analysis was made of the contents of their stomach and gizzard in order to supplant mere opinion which has been leen so contradictory by a certain amount of fact of the 45 stomachs examined 37 contained more than 90 per cent vegetable material only seven contained over 10 per cent animal matter and only one a third biown pheasant contained over 90 per cent animal matter fifteen stomachs contained per er cent vegetable material but all but one of these were taken during the winter months when it was difficult for the pheasant to 0 obtain animal matter the food contents of the stomachs indicate that the pheasant is an omnivorous feeder that is is eating all kinds of food but that it t prefers grain to any other food thirty hirty three of the birds had eaten some land kind of grain and this food bod comprised more than a third of the total stomach contents of this his amount 97 per cent was wheat 10 per cent corn 10 per cent barley and 3 per cent was oats twenty three birds had eaten green plant material chief of which was grass alfalfa and clover ten birds were taken in or very close to beet fields but only on ay three stomachs contained beet roots forty one of the forty five pheasants had eaten weed seeds green foxtail clover wild rose dock and barnyard grass were most often found mustard sunflower russian thistle and ragweed were slightly less common one stomach taken in january contained weed seeds of which were russian thistle fourteen and five tenths per cent of the total yearly food average consisted of animal matter including about forty species of insects of which grasshoppers snout beetles ground beetles and ants were the most common the bulletin suma surnames the findings of the author in the following fair and impartial manner which should find favor with both the farmers and sportsmen the above facts show that both biais piais e and blame are arc due the bird on the basis of its feeding habits at no time of the year is it pre dominantly insectivorous its chief value aside from its aesthetic worth undoubtedly consists in its being a game bird it does service in destroying obnoxious weeds and destructive insects its injury to agriculture consists in its destruction of vegetables sprouting grain and a few beneficial insects the pheasant is essentially a bird of the swamps moist thickets and brushy lands it seems that in utah only those farms next to its favored habitat are arc damaged to any appreciable extent and even there it renders considerable service in general it appears that as long as the pheasants are arc held within reasonable numbers they will render at least as much service to agriculture as they do harm |
