by Chad Love

In the past three weeks I've made two hunting road trips through the heart of the great plains, from northern Oklahoma through Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota all the way to the North Dakota border. For anyone not familiar with this part of the country, the nations wheat-and-corn basket, it's hard to comprehend just how industrialized much of this vast and lonely landscape truly is, or how fragile.

Take a drive up U.S. 183 from Oklahoma to South Dakota and and continue up U.S. 281 into North Dakota and you will see endless miles of large-scale agriculture that continues to feed, and increasingly fuel, an ever-hungrier world. You will also bear witness to some of the finest remaining bird hunting in the nation. Bobwhite quail, pheasants, lesser and greater prairie chickens, sharptails, waterfowl; if it has wings it can be found within a few miles on either side of this thin stretch of asphalt that perfectly embodies Woody Guthrie's beautiful "ribbon of highway, endless skyway" poeticism.

One of these days I hope to load up the dogs and spend an entire season exploring this bird highway, chasing the fall and my dreams from north to south. But increasingly I fear I may not get the chance, and even if I do, the experience may prove to be nothing more than requiem. Our bird-hunting heartland is in trouble, big trouble.

Why? Because the Conservation Reserve Program is in trouble, big trouble. From this press release from Pheasants Forever:

Congress is debating necessary reductions in federal spending to balance our budget. It's important these cuts to be made with a clear view of today AND tomorrow's ledger. Of chief concern to Pheasants Forever is the integrity of CRP, which has a 25-year history of growing rural economies, creating wildlife, and protecting our water. Despite this positive track record, strong forces are working to use our nation's current economic state of belt-tightening to force-feed their own anti-conservation agendas. These anti-CRP voices have launched an all-out assault to neuter CRP.

Soil Erosion: Since 1986, CRP has stopped more than 8 billion tons of soils from eroding off the land.

There is simply no way to overstate or hyperbolize how important CRP is to gamebird and wildlife production in the plains states. In many areas it is - quite literally - the only habitat available for miles around. I've hunted CRP parcels that - excepting bar ditches - were the only patches of native grass for literally miles And when and if that CRP parcel goes into production, that's it, game over, at least on a micro scale. And on a macro, nation-wide scale? Full-on decimation of wild gamebird populations in the plains states. It's that important.

Here's what Dave Nomsen, Pheasants Forever's vice-president of government relations and one of the nation's top experts on CRP, had to say about the current predicament of the program.

From his blog:

"I have worked in Washington, D.C. on conservation programs and CRP since its 1985 beginnings. I’ve never, ever, seen the program’s future so grim. There are proposals to slash CRP’s current 32 million-acre baseline in half... or worse. I don’t need to tell you what a loss of that magnitude would mean to pheasants, quail, flood prevention, water quality and hunting access. “DEVASTATING” is the word that rings in my mind.

I recognize we do need to reduce federal spending, but we need to be wise about our conservation cuts. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines of this battle for conservation in the past, it’s critical that you get in the game now. Your future and your children’s future of days spent in the field together with bird dogs and flushing roosters hangs in the balance. This is my personal plea; please, please contact your two U.S. Senators and one U.S. Representative about making CRP reauthorization a top Congressional priority today. If you get a response back, please drop me an email message with the feedback you receive at dnomsen@pheasantsforever.org . Please don’t let CRP be this generation’s Soil Bank program of days gone by."

Our collective future as hunters will be defined by the choices we make today. We can argue all we want about government spending, deficit-reduction, national debt and who's responsible for what, but destroying one of the most successful and beneficial-to-hunting conservation programs in history, all under the guise of fiscal responsibility, is the kind of cosmic, non-partisan stupidity we need to avoid, not embrace. Call your elected representatives and voice your support for CRP. The tradition you save may be your own...

Comments (5)

from OutdoorEnvy wrote 32 weeks 3 days ago

I love the U.S. 183 drive. I've been driving from OK to SD my whole life using it. Seen more pheasants than I'll ever count of that hiway.

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from Sayfu wrote 32 weeks 3 days ago

Understand where funding comes from, and vote for folks that understand good economics..Econ 101.

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from Nic Meador wrote 32 weeks 2 days ago

That just pisses me off, how about they cut the B.S. government jobs like OSHA for instance.

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from shane wrote 32 weeks 2 days ago

These cuts aren't supported by politicians that understand "Econ 101". They are supported by urbanites that could give two $h!ts about sportsmen, conservation, and wildlife that want to cut the low hanging fruit so they can smile and say they did something for the budget.

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from Sayfu wrote 32 weeks 1 day ago

Shane...Keep an eye on the cuts please. Detroit just removed a lot of their lights because they can't pay their light bill. Have a clue. And recreation programs ARE THE LOW HANGING FRUIT...every time their is an economic crisis.

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from OutdoorEnvy wrote 32 weeks 3 days ago

I love the U.S. 183 drive. I've been driving from OK to SD my whole life using it. Seen more pheasants than I'll ever count of that hiway.

+1 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Nic Meador wrote 32 weeks 2 days ago

That just pisses me off, how about they cut the B.S. government jobs like OSHA for instance.

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from shane wrote 32 weeks 2 days ago

These cuts aren't supported by politicians that understand "Econ 101". They are supported by urbanites that could give two $h!ts about sportsmen, conservation, and wildlife that want to cut the low hanging fruit so they can smile and say they did something for the budget.

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Sayfu wrote 32 weeks 1 day ago

Shane...Keep an eye on the cuts please. Detroit just removed a lot of their lights because they can't pay their light bill. Have a clue. And recreation programs ARE THE LOW HANGING FRUIT...every time their is an economic crisis.

0 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

from Sayfu wrote 32 weeks 3 days ago

Understand where funding comes from, and vote for folks that understand good economics..Econ 101.

-1 Good Comment? Yes | No | Report

Post a Comment

 

All submitted comments are subject to the rules set forth in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.