Pheasants Forever

Pheasants Forever, Inc. is a nonprofit conservation organization in the United States formed in response to the continuing decline of upland wildlife. Pheasants Forever have 700 chapters, including 74 in Minnesota, and about 110,000 members Nationwide, including 22,500 in Minnesota. Quail Forever, created in 2005, has 5,000 members nationwide. There is one chapter in Minnesota with 141 members. (Doug and Anderson) Pheasants Forever raise funds through the chapters then use the funding to improve habitat development, promote conservation education, and other worthy endeavors.

Under the banner of the grassroots conservation campaign, the organization has set a goal of raising $25 million in planned gifts, estate, bequests and other donations. The objective of the campaign is to accelerate the organization’s ability to conserve and enhance North America’s Wildlife resources as well as Americans' hunting tradition. As peasants forever celebrate 25 years of national conservation leadership, the Grassroots Conservation Campaign builds on the organization’s mission of wildlife conservation. Pheasants forever participate in habitat projects. The system of empowering local chapters and volunteers to make the best decisions for wildlife in their local area has resulted in the average annual completion of over 27,200 projects. Since its inception in the 1982, Pheasants Forever’s wildlife habitat projects have been completed in conjunction with local, state and federal natural resource agencies, and all of those projects are today open to public hunting. (Hauk)Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever have affected about convert|5000000|acre|km2—including planting grasslands, restoring wetlands, planting woody cover or food plots and purchasing lands—since its formation. The total includes 370,262 habitat projects. (Doug) In Minnesota, the group says it has spent $ 33.7 million and affected about nearly convert|200000|acre|km2. Pheasants forever spent $260 Million for its habitat and education programs, including $33.7 Million in Minnesota.

Early on, some chapters or would-be chapters wanted to stock pheasants. Pheasants Forever always has had a policy against stoking, arguing that habitat expansion is the key to higher ring neck numbers.

History

Dennis Anderson, outdoor editor for the ST. Paul Pioneer Press and dispatch. Wrote a very emotional article March 7, 1982 Anderson did not mix up his words. “Up until now, we’ve done little but complain. Until now we’ve stood by, watching Minnesota’s native habitat disappear, and with it wildlife of all types. Instead of doing something, we’ve come to accept our present situation as inevitable and tolerable. “It was inevitable that marshes would be drained, we say to ourselves. It was inevitable that ditches would be burned. It was inevitable that fields would be plowed each fall, leaving no winter cover for upland birds. And because it was inevitable, it’s now tolerable. We tolerate winters such as these, when hens and roosters freeze to death, their faces mere clumps of ice after they turn windward to a final, desperate attempt to survive. “Have you ever watched a pheasant freeze?” (Hauk) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMRKxzRjFNK&features=user] Two weeks later Anderson reported over 100 people wrote him back and another 50 had called him. Anderson then printed the names of everyone who responded to the article. Most were simple hunters from all corners of the state, people that cared very much about the future of the habitat, pheasants and hunting.

The first Pheasants Forever banquet was held April, 15, 1983 at the former Prom Center on University Avenue in St. Paul. About 800 attended. The event was, and still is, one of the biggest of its kind in Minnesota. (Doug) The first speaker at the first Pheasants Forever banquet was the late Gov. Rudy Perpich, who later signed the state’s first pheasant stamp bill—which Pheasants Forever and supportive legislators had written and promoted.(Doug) The state pheasant stamp has raised $14.6 Million for pheasant habitat and development on private and public lands, and for public land acquisition. The stamp costs $7.50 and it is required of pheasant hunters age 18 and older. (Doug)

Among attendees at the first banquet was famed water fowler and outdoors writer Jimmy Robinson. At that time age 85, Robinson had been a supporter in the 1930s of the formation of Ducks Unlimited. He presented two $1,000 checks to Pheasants Forever banquet organizer’s, one from him and one from the late Robert Naegele Sr. a St. Louis Park resident, Robinson said he liked Perpich but didn’t vote for him. “I voted for Harold Washington of Chicago,” he said. (Doug)The first outstanding banquet was held in Willmar, in Kandiyohi County. Doug Lovander was principle organizer. When Lovander contacted Dennis Anderson, to express interest in forming a chapter, Anderson asked Lovander how serious he was about pheasants. “Put it this way,” Lovander said. “I conduct my own spring roadhouse [population] surveys.”

The Kandiyohi chapter netted $16,000 from its banquet, drawing 500 people. Lovander and other chapter officers wondered how giving the money to St. Paul-based Pheasants Forever would help Willmar-area pheasants. A meeting beneath a circus tent on Lovander’s lawn after a pheasant feed helped solidify a strategy that remains with local chapters for habitat development. (Doug)A key hire early in the groups history was that Jim Wooley of Chariton, Iowa. Wooley was that state’s upland bird biologist and his employment as a field representative/biologist smoothed the way for Pheasants Forever to expand in Iowa. (Doug) Journal Entries from the Founder-March 1985, started with 275 members. Raised $11.00 thou first banquet -Planted 17,000 trees and shrubs the first yearA later journal entry speaks to the conservation ethic, patience and devotion characteristic of pheasants forever’s members, nearly doubling every year. Numbers of members through the first eight years:-1982: “Membership total/year end-N/A (not applicable).”-1983: “Membership total/year end-1,000.”-1984: 3,000 members-1985: 6,000 members-1986: 12,000 members-1987: 25,000 members-1988: 34,250 members-1989: 46,000 membersMore than $5 billion the USDA spends on conservation each year in two-and-a-half times larger than the entire U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budget. And the USDA is proving everyday that it can balance the goals of maintaining a stable food and fiber supply while sustaining fish and wildlife habitat. (Hauck)

Present Day

Currently Pheasants Forever has chapters in 28 states, members in all other states and chapters in their sister organization, Pheasants Forever Canada. Pheasants Forever now have 21 wildlife biologists around the country and a growing cadre of habitat team specialists in three states.

Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever chapters hold more than 500 youth events a year connecting 25,000 plus youth to the outdoors. Many of the chapters provide educators with scholarships to attend Leopold Education project workshops. The educators reach out in their communities to sponsor youth mentor hunts, outdoor conservation days, shooting sports, competitive events, conservation camps, and youth fishing tournaments, outdoor expos, hunter education classes, schoolyard habitats and much more.

These activities are all a part in a new initiative aimed at getting youth unplugged from electronics and turned on to the outdoors, nature and wildlife. Pheasants forever wants no child left indoors. Nationwide, a smaller percentage of people- particularly youth- are spending time participating in outdoor recreation activities such as hunting, fishing and camping. Instead, time is being spent in front of computers, televisions and other electronics. (Hauck)

No Child Left Indoors initiative builds on Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever’s popular Leopold Education project and chapter youth events with a menu of expanded youth and family programs that are designed with Peasants Forever and Quail Forever chapters in mind. The No Child Left Indoors initiative will be carried out through youth habitat projects, youth and family community events and youth outdoor education programs hosted by chapters and volunteers across the country.

In the Watonwan county chapter particularly exemplifies the no child left indoors. In addition to a popular youth mentor hunt, they have formed a youth club that meets once a month to do outdoor activities, community events and fundraising. The Watonwan chapter also has a special program with the landowners who allow youth to hunt on their property and in return they youth do habitat work for the landowner - to the tune of convert|200|acre|km2 so far. (Hauck)

Statistics

Minnesota’s conservation groups1. Ducks Unlimited, 42,0002. National Wild Turkey Federation, 26,0003. Pheasants Forever, 22,5004. Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, 20,0005. Minnesota Waterfowl AssociationTop five states for Pheasants Forever members1. Minnesota, 22,5002. Iowa, 20,2003. Nebraska,10,2004. Michigan, 7,9005. Illinois and Wisconsin, 7,500

References

*Hauck, Anthony. “Pheasants Forever”. Winter 2002. 18 Feb. 2008 www.pheasantsforever.org.
*Smith, Doug , and Dennis Anderson.”25 facts about Pheasants Forever.” . 15 Jan. 2008 18 feb.2008

External links