OutdoorNebraska

8 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Since their introduc on to Nebraska around 1900, pheasants have become a fixture of the state's agricultural landscape and cultural heritage. Popula on levels have ebbed and flowed with changing farming prac ces, o en driven by federal farm policies. Current policies, along with more efficient farming prac ces, have created substan al challenges to providing consistently good pheasant hun ng in many Nebraska landscapes, par cularly where wheat and other small grains are no longer part of crop rota ons. If pheasant hunters are to have sa sfying experiences in these landscapes, and to remain sa sfied in our current pheasant strongholds, ac ve management will be necessary. This plan seeks to direct that ac ve management, and substan ally increase it from current baseline levels. The objec ve of this plan is to provide the best pheasant hun ng experiences possible for the largest number of people over the next five years. Our guiding principles are: • We will consider all manageable aspects of the pheasant hun ng experience, with habitat and hunter access (par cularly for youth) remaining our cornerstone ac vi es • We will concentrate work where it will be most effec ve (i.e., where habitat, hunter access, and community support come together) based on sound science • We will set realis c management targets and expecta ons, and use our financial and human resources as efficiently as possible to meet them • We will foster strong partnerships with other public en es, private conserva on organiza ons, and local communi es in reaching our shared goals We created a comprehensive conceptual model to iden fy all the major factors involved in reaching our objec ve. The model proposes four primary driving factors ("drivers") that influence hun ng experiences, each working within a policy and funding environment, and further iden fies a suite of factors that can impact each. Stated as direc onal goals, those drivers include: • Increase pheasant abundance • Increase hunter access to land holding pheasants • Increase the pool of poten al pheasant hunters • Manage hunter expecta ons appropriately Of those drivers, increasing pheasant abundance and hunter access to land are the cornerstone ac vi es that most directly influence hun ng experiences. As such, we recommend specific improvements in these factors in eight areas of the state where research and experience suggest our efforts will be most effec ve. Combined across areas, these improvements consist of over 805,000 acres of addi onal habitat improvements and 122,000 acres of increased hun ng access, with an es mated average annual cost of $5.9 million. Substan al public-private partnerships will be required to implement this ambi ously comprehensive program, but doing so will create wide-ranging benefits for Nebraska's hunters, environment, and rural economy. PHEASANTS IN NEBRASKA: AN OVERVIEW The ring-necked pheasant's tenure in Nebraska has surpassed the century mark, with the first reports of the species occurring around 1900 (Mathison and Mathison 1960). In 1911, the state legislature, for the first me, allocated funds to help establish the pheasant in suitable habitat across the state (Shafer 2011). In its first 100 years of residency, the pheasant has become one of the most recognizable and culturally important wildlife species to the state's ci zens. Communi es throughout rural Nebraska have enjoyed the economic and social ac vity associated with pheasant hun ng since the 1920s, and perhaps no other event has intermingled rural and urban Nebraskans (as well as those from other states) together as effec vely as the opening day of pheasant season.

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