Pheasants Forever Hosting 22 CRP Landowner Workshops in South Dakota

Pheasants Forever is hosting 22 CRP Landowner Workshops in South Dakota this March to inform farmers, ranchers and conservationists about Conservation Reserve Program General Sign-Up 43. The sign-up, which runs from March 12, 2012 through April 6, 2012, is crucial to South Dakota’s ring-necked pheasant population.

At the workshops, landowners can learn from Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologists how to improve the chances of their lands being accepted in the competitive CRP General Sign-Up 43. Pheasants Forever will also be informing producers on how conserving marginal lands through CRP can prove mutually beneficial for wildlife and agriculture production.

Abundant CRP grassland habitat in South Dakota has helped maintain the state’s status as the nation’s top pheasant producing state, but the state has lost more than a quarter of its CRP acreage since 2007 (from 1.56 million acres in 2007 to the current level of 1.1 million acres). Subsequently, South Dakota’s pheasant population dropped nearly 50 percent last year. “South Dakota pheasants and other wildlife are in need of a successful CRP signup, but so are landowners,” said Matt Morlock, a Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist based out of Brookings, “This signup isn’t about pitting ag production and wildlife against one another, but working together for the betterment of a balanced South Dakota landscape.”

For more information regarding landowner workshops in South Dakota, please contact Matt Morlock at 605-881-8258 or Email Matt. For all other inquiries, please contact Rehan Nana, Pheasants Forever Public Relations Specialist at 651-209-4973 or Email Rehan.

Pheasants Forever

Pheasants Forever launched Quail Forever in August of 2005 to address the continuing loss of habitat suitable for quail and the subsequent quail population decline. Bobwhite population losses over the last 25 years range from 60 to 90 percent across the country. The reason for the quail population plunge is simple - massive losses of habitat suitable for quail. There are five major factors leading to the losses of quail habitat; intensified farming and forestry practices, succession of grassland ecosystems to forests, overwhelming presence of exotic grasses like fescue that choke out wildlife, and urban sprawl.