Chinese Ring-necked Pheasant doomed to industrial ag

40 below keeps the riff-raff out: remember that old white wives' tale?

The guest list for the 2011 Governors Invitational Pheasant Slaughter reads like an earth hater's group grope. At least 1,376 birds were killed although that number doesn't include other items blasted into oblivion by that murder of Daugaardian crows.

As farmers across the Midwest have simplified the landscape and plowed up grassland to grow more corn and soybeans, habitat for pheasants, quail and other grassland birds has become increasingly scarce and their numbers are falling. In Nebraska, wild pheasant concentrations have fallen 86 percent since their peak in the 1960s. The pheasant harvest during hunting season in Iowa is off 63 percent from the highs reached in the 1970s. In areas that used to be overrun, you’ll struggle to find a pheasant now. [Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio]

Chinese Ring-necked Pheasants don't eat grasshoppers but wild geese and turkeys sure do while the pesticide industry that greases Republican politicos don't give a shit about anything but profits. The Siberian air mass made more potent by the Anthropocene is expected to finish off the remaining numbers of invasive species like the pheasant and slow the bugs culling ponderosa pine allowed to infest the Mountain West.

Add the extirpation of apex predators, the resulting rise of mesopredators, increasing numbers of domestic dogs and cats then stir in a melange of industrial chemicals and climate change: voila! Red state collapse on parade.

Madville Times: Big Ag Crowds out Pheasants. Duh.: Larry Kurtz is right: Governor Dennis Daugaard's Pheasant H... http://t.co/wz10sU7XVz
— CAHeidelberger (@coralhei) December 7, 2013

“If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace.” --Nelson Mandela.

Stupid fuckers.