Letter: Reader opposed to continued hunt for rooster pheasants

“Stand up and live before you sit down to write,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. Well, I’ve stood up to live while growing up in Murray County, attending college at SDSU and the University of Minnesota, returning to southwest Minnesota, traveling the countryside for 35 years as a rural veterinarian and walking through or looking over most of our local wildlife areas as a hunter and conservationist. I’ve also sat down to write hundreds of times over 30 years as an outdoor columnist for our local newspaper, the Cottonwood County Citizen. It’s time to do it again.

My reason is to oppose this continued hunt for rooster pheasants in the face of the snowiest December on record in Minnesota. I know, I know — the conventional wisdom is that you can’t overshoot the roosters. And, I agree.

But, what is continually overlooked is that, while hunting roosters, we are also chasing the more fragile hen pheasant from her habitat. In the morning, hunters drive them away from their feeding site, in mid-day they are flushed from their resting and warming spots, and finally, near sundown, they are forced to flee from their carefully chosen night time roost.

Scott Rall was wrong to tell hunters to “spend your time in cattails the last 30 minutes of shooting” in his Dec. 17 column. The MnDNR is wrong for not doing an emergency closing of the pheasant season in a year like this. And finally, Pheasants Forever is wrong for having a Jan. 2 contest to see who can hunt down and bring in the longest rooster tail.

It’s all about protecting the hens and getting them through a tough winter, to reproduce next spring. Stress is cumulative and survival depends on reducing stress. What good does it do if we continue to improve habitat, then go out and chase them from it at a time when they need it most?

It’s time to oil up the 12 gauge (It has been for several weeks) and voluntarily put it away for the year, because it looks like our leaders are misguided on this one.

Tags: opinion, letters, outdoors