Access digital copies of guides and regulations publications from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
Issue link: http://digital.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1449393
10 public lands have evolved into a significant partnership program (i�e�, "Habitat Share") that now impacts tens of thousands of acres annually� In partnership with PF, a Coordinating Wildlife Biologist position was hired to help coordinate habitat tours and management activities on the focal areas� The "Want more pheasants?" pamphlet, containing a list of FOP accomplishments and lessons learned, was distributed to all Nebraska landowners� Lessons learned through early FOP efforts were equally important, with one being that landowner participation in FOP activities was highly contingent on incentive payments� For example, once incentive payments ceased, including annual rental payments from USDA through CRP, so did the management activities, and almost all the FOP-CRP tracts in Dixon and Stanton counties were converted back to row crops when these commodities became more lucrative� All the wildlife benefits created by these programs were lost� Further, habitat enhancements that relied exclusively on disking and interseeding with legumes often resulted in noxious weed problems that damaged relations with local landowners, communities, and USDA personnel, and made implementation efforts more difficult� In areas with a history of noxious weeds, alternative forms of disturbance lessen the likelihood of future infestations and also will ensure resources are spent on habitat creation rather than weed eradication� In 2009, a new FOP initiative was developed on private lands in portions of Hayes, Hitchcock, and Red Willow counties, termed the "Southwest FOP" area� Unlike most of eastern Nebraska, the landscape in southwest Nebraska was still very diverse and continued to support relatively good pheasant numbers, even in areas with limited CRP enrollment� Winter wheat was still present in most crop rotations and staff quickly developed financial incentives to encourage producers to leave tall (more than 14 inches) wheat and milo stubble post-harvest to enhance habitat for pheasants� This practice was very popular among producers as it also provided agricultural benefits (e�g�, soil moisture retention, higher subsequent yields, etc�)� This ultimately led to a successful grant application through the Nebraska Environmental Trust, which helped expand this program offering throughout much of western Nebraska� Despite high levels of landowner participation, an evaluation conducted in 2015 concluded that the Commission's tall stubble incentives were not changing landowner behaviors nor leading to the further adoption of this conservation practice� Still, this program provided an opportunity for agency and partnership staff to work cooperatively with hundreds of landowners throughout the area� Many of these pre- existing relationships have led to additional habitat improvement projects on other parts of the farm as well as increased participation in OFW� In recent years, staff have enrolled more than 30,000 acres of tall stubble into OFW annually and more than a third of all existing CRP acres in the Southwest FOP area currently are open to public hunting, which speaks to the large number of landowners the Commission and partnership staff work with each year� The Southwest FOP area has been expanded several times and a similar initiative was developed within neighboring counties to the east in 2012 (i�e�, "South- Central FOP")� Financial incentives have been very successful in retaining CRP, improving existing grassland habitats, and increasing public access within both focal areas� Concurrent to these efforts, the Commission and researchers at UNL's Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit initiated a long-term pheasant research project in 2012 within the SWFOP area� Over the seven-year study, more than 1,100 pheasants were captured and monitored to quantify habitat use and other parameters in southwest Nebraska� This study also quantified hunter use of public access sites and examined the influences of drought and hunting pressure on production, survival and movements� A habitat suitability model developed by Jorgensen et al� (2014) was used to prioritize conservation efforts within the Berggren Plan� This work also provided key information regarding the influence of various landscape factors on pheasant abundance – most notably the positive influence of small grains and negative influence of tree cover at the landscape scale� This comprehensive research project resulted in numerous publications within peer-reviewed, scientific journals, which are listed in Appendix F�