Whether it’s a landowner, producer, someone from the general public, or heck sometimes even someone from a government agency, I spend a lot of time explaining what a Pheasants Forever Biologist is, before we get into specific conversation for that person. This explanation can happen 50 or more times in a day manning a farm show booth. It’s not like the job title is accurately descriptive towards what the job entails. In fact, I think it actually throws people into a direction that I (we) don’t want their thoughts to go to. The most common thought that occurs to people is that we raise pheasants or release them. Another time I will write in depth on this, just know that PF doesn’t promote releasing birds. Wild is where it is at, and habitat is how we get there.
It’s not that I mind discussing some of the same things over and over. I’m used to it. I know that my mission in the position is difficult because we are trying to change things that have been in-grained for generations. Many of the things that landowners, producers, and hunters are hung up on were encouraged by federal and state agencies throughout the years. There are a great number of practices that were encouraged by government affiliated agencies that we now know were a little off or just plain wrong. The problem is that the connection that was so strong to get these things in place is almost nonexistent anymore to change them for the better.
Our focus on magical introduce monoculture plantings is still strong unfortunately. I battle almost daily with this. To be completely honest there are still some holdouts in agencies that still can’t seem to completely get this out of our practices. I’ve said it time and again, for healthy grasslands we cannot have a farming mindset, which is what monoculture or low diversity grass only is. It’s the isolation of one species against all other species. It’s obvious why we do this in farming. It should be obvious why we shouldn’t do it in grasslands, but it is a constant fight. There are not any introduced species that perform a task that a native species can’t. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to get 10 or a scary 20 species into a grass seeding mix as it is. Everything over 5 seems to get everyone on edge. It’s crazy to think that species that have existed here for tens of thousands of years are harder to get planted then species from the other side of the world.
Getting back to my job description. The good and at the same time the bad is that it can be up to interpretation a bit but there are some clear objectives. The number one objective is to get more rear ends into the seats of our partners at FSA, NRCS, and GF&P. Getting more of you aware of the programs and technical assistance available from all of the conservation partners should fulfil PF’s mission of creating more acres of habitat. So, that’s objective number one.
Objective number two is to create better quality habitat. This is where all the discussion on species selection, species diversity, native species, avoiding chemicals to control weeds, burning, rotational grazing, intensive grazing, etc. comes from. This can be a much swifter current to swim against than getting new acres into grass. There is always a fear of not being able to spray to control weeds. Thus, landowners often want to go back to what they are comfortable with, and planners often don’t want to push the issue. I wasn’t hired to not push the issue, if no effort to change is ever made, change never happens. This doesn’t mean we have to argue over things, it just means we need to have conversations. Conversations that don’t happen currently with everyone in the room. If your objective is to have the most optimum habitat then the more diversity you can have the better. It goes completely against your own wishes to cut down on species. If your objective is grazing, production same thing. If your objective is a CRP check and you don’t want to hunt, graze, or hay then sure throw your tall wheat grass in there and be done with it. (Little side note: There is a line in the CRP manual that states “Introduced species should be avoided.” While this doesn’t prohibit them it is something maybe we should think about when creating seed plans.)
Public access is a whole other wrinkle that is a large part of my job. The PF Biologist position is created by using funds from partners and a little from PF. Roughly half of it comes from NRCS with slightly less than half coming from GF&P. This means it gives me a good deal of insight on what’s happening at the federal level and the state. It also means that I’m looking for people who might sign-up their ground for public access if the money is right. If we want to talk about misconceptions, whew this is the area that is chalk full of them. Now it’s tough to tell a landowner that their past bad experiences with hunters wouldn’t ever happen, but money is a concrete thing that has some inaccurate information out there on it. My spiel is always if the money is enough for the headaches you run the risk of, then it’s worth looking at. If they are not, then it’s not worth it. I don’t expect anyone to enroll out of some moral obligation. But seriously if you don’t hunt, it’s money that’s left out there. The approach on this is unpopular with some but there are far more people without a place to hunt than there are with. We are all on the same side, and if we can gain more allies and make more money, I sure think that’s a win all around.
We get the general idea when we are hired that we are to get more new acres in the ground, improve the acres we have, and sign up more public access acres all without a guide on how to accomplish these goals. I happen to embrace that it is up to me on how to tackle these objectives. I think it is better because I’m allowed to try things that maybe others haven’t thought of (like this column, or dressed as Bruce Willis for a parade float) instead of being placed in a box. There are a great deal of challenges in this position but don’t think I’m whining, I’m as passionate (another word for stubborn) as you can get when it comes to conservation. I just want it to be clear where I’m at if we are lucky enough to have a conservation conversation.Plantdiversity is important, we don’t need introduced plant species in grasslands (ever), weeds aren’t scary, and public access isn’t the boogey man.