Scott Rall: Having a plan and implementing it are two very different things

So this author weighs 230 pounds. The author wants to weigh 200 pounds.
I have a plan. Eat less, exercise more and give up my two favorite things - French fries and Dorito nacho chips. I just simply implement the plan and in a few short months, all is well, and the desired result is achieved. Does this just sound peachy?
The issue is that having a plan and implementing the plan are two very different things. If all we had to do was tell ourselves to obey the rules of the plan, and then do it, it would be easy to achieve the goal. We all know this is so much harder and, in most cases, far less successful than we would like.
The DNR just released a 10-point plan to increase the number of pheasants and pheasant hunters in the state. All of this work has been a result of the pheasant summit that was held many months back. The governor’s buffer plan was also a result of that summit. I will summarize the plan and make every effort to make it much shorter than the version I have.
Number 1 is to identity nine square-mile habitat complexes across the pheasant range with the goal of 25-40 percent of that nine square miles being in some form of permanent nesting cover. Larger complexes raise more wildlife than the same number of acres in a more patchwork layout. Number one means more grass.
Number 2 is to increase enrollment in permanent conservation easements and to increase participation in non-permanent programs like CRP. Number 2 means more grass.
Number 3 would increase education efforts and marketing of private land programs like CRP using a program called the Farm Bill Assistance Partnership. This is more folks hired to talk to land owners and persuading them to enter programs that will (you guessed it) plant more grass.
Number 4 is one I agree with completely, and that is, where appropriate, acquire more WMAs and WPAs for the permanent protection of wetlands and other critical areas. This will add grass but also protect wells and water supplies as well. It will end up with the end result of more grass.
Number 5 is increase management of the public and private habitat that already exists to make those lands more productive. This is one goal that does not add more grass but would increase the pheasant production on the grass we already have.
Number 6 is to develop and implement a riparian buffer plan. This has already been started but in a very watered down version that what the governor proposed initially. Buffers protect water and they tend to be less productive from a pheasant production standpoint, but the end result is just a little more grass. Narrow strips of grass are more easily hunted by predators like coons, foxes and the like, so production in most cases is less.
Number 7 is to improve the pheasant production in road ditches. This might mean planting better grasses or forbs and might include not mowing up all the nests in June and July for hay harvest. The mowing dates are not part of the discussion yet but I would very much like them to be when this issue is implemented. I get calls all the time asking why the road ditches are hayed at the peak of the pheasant nesting season and what law is in place to prevent it. In the real world there really are no restrictions on when grass cutting can take place.
Number 8 has a goal of securing federal funding for our Walk In program. This is a program where a land owner is paid a rate per acre to allow foot traffic hunting. Nobles County has almost no substantial amount of private lands in grass in parcel sizes large enough to quality. This program looks for grass in 40 acres or larger sections. This will not result in more grass.
Number 9 wants to expand education efforts about the benefits of grasslands and pheasant conservation issues and work to support hunter retention and recruitment. The more pheasant hunters you have, the more people you’ll have who care about their habitats and populations. Number 9 does not increase the amount of grasslands.
Number 10 wants to expand research and monitoring capacities of both habitats and population studies of grassland species and make those results known to the general public. I am not big on research. I think we know what it takes to grow pheasants from what we have learned over almost 100 years.
Of the 10 points in the plan, implementing five of them will result in more grass on the landscape. Continuing the Walk In program will not raise more pheasants but it might raise more pheasant hunters and the research component may or may not add any pheasants. Only another 20 years will tell if this one will work or not.
I cannot get out of my head something that was told to me when I first started helping out with the local chapter of Pheasants Forever more than 30 years ago. A detractor of the pheasant effort was quoted as saying back in 1986, “You can’t grow pheasants in dirt.”
This is so true. With all of the pheasant plans and this new 10-point plan, what we do know is that you can grow pheasants in grass. I was on a 15-mile Ranger ride the other evening and for 14 of those miles I saw not one pheasant. In the 15th mile there was some grass and a wetland and in that mile I saw 15 pheasants - 12 young and three adults.
Wildlife does not need more research. It does not need more Walk In areas. What wildlife needs is just a place to be, to live, to breed and raise its young. In the pheasant range of southwest Minnesota this means grass, more grass and, if possible, just a little more grass.
Man can go to the moon and has cured many illnesses. Pheasants don’t take rocket science. They need a few basic things and we know what they are. I hope that we can implement the 10-point plan robustly enough to make a difference. When we had lots of grass in CRP, buffers, fence rows, pastures and field corners, we had a lot of pheasants.
Less of these means less pheasants. More grass equals more pheasants, and it does not take a 10-point plan for this rank-and-file conservationist to see it.