The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1927-12-14
Welcoming the Hungarian
Partridge to Minnesota

game bird which is fast disappearing
from Minnesota covers. Its disap-
pearance, | am sure, is not because
of the abundance of the Hungarian
partridge or the ringneck pheasant
in the state of Washington or in the
Canadian provinces. There must be
some other reason, and l am certain
the answer is simply this-the prairie
chicken will not stand cultivation.
For example, the state of Kansas has
been without prairie chickens for a
number of years; no other species 1T
game birds, either foreign or native,
has been planted within its borders,
and still the prairie chicken has dis
appeared except in the western tier of
counties which is, for the most part,
has been extensively cultivated, and
the prairie chicken must have wild,
unbroken territory with an abundance
of wild grass, or it will not propa
gate.
''This season, in Minnesota, there
has been very noticeable decrease
of prairie chickens, and if the ring
neck pheasant and Hungarian part
ridge were abundant in the territory
where this bird is disappearing in
Minnesota, they would be accused of
destroying or driving the prairie
chicken out. But there are practical
ly no ringneck pheasants nor Hun
garian cartridges where prairie
chickens have been found in Mime
sofa, during the past two or three
years, SO we have experienced de-
crease in these birds, equal to that of
South Dakota and Canada where
the ringnecks and Hungarians have
been accused of driving the prairie
chicken out.
About year ago, F. F. Rathburn,
game and fish commissioner of the
state of Washington, was visiting in
Minneapolis and in the presence of
Harold R. Ward, of Minneapolis, Ed.
L. Eylar, president of the Hennepin
County Sportsmen's Club, and myself,
he made the statement that the ring
neck pheasant and Hungarian part
ridge had been the means of perpetu-
ating the prairie chicken and native
partridge in his state by DETECTING
the hunters fire from these native
game birds, and that where cover was
suitable, both the prairie chicken and
native partridge were on the increase
because of the abundance of the i'm
ported birds and the wider range of
territory in which they successfully
propagated, repeating the statement
that both of these imported species
were very numerous in highly cult
waited areas where neither the prairie
chicken nor the native partridge could
successfully rest.
''In South Dakota, the sportsmen
and game commissioner imported the
ringneck pheasant because the native
prairie chicken had disappeared from
the cultivated sections of the state.
'The answer to the question why
our prairie chickens are becoming
so depleted, we believe, is, because OF
the extensive cultivation of our agri-
cultural lands.
"Our native partridge, which we
have all learned to admire because
of his uncanny ability to disappear
from beneath our feet without our
having an opportunity even to point
a gun at him. has also disappeared
from Minnesota covers. This is true
not only in our state, but also from
the New England coast, all the way
across our states and Canada to the
eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains.
No foreign species of bird has been
introduced in the territory where he