Bucks Before Birds: Farmers to Plow Almost Half of SD CRP Acres

While I lament the loss of a couple dozen good trees, South Dakota is on pace to lose 44% of the wildlife habitat previously held in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Patrick Morrison reports in yesterday's Yankton Press & Dakotan that "300,000 acres of CRP were converted to production ground last year, reducing the overall number of CRP acres to 1.2 million." Biologist Chad Switzer of Game Fish and Parks estimates farmers will convert another 120,000 acres this year and 240,000 next. That's 660,000 acres -- over a thousand square miles, equivalent to almost all the land in Lake and Moody Counties -- where pheasants won't be able to nest, breed, or roost as they did just two years ago.

Why the decrease? Simple economics: with farm prices up thanks to ethanol and Asian demand, CRP just doesn't pay like it used to. And with America's failed energy policy driving up costs for fuel and fertilizer, farmers have to put short-term payoffs over long-term habitat protection

Oh well -- with ammo prices going up 50% or more, you don't want to shoot as many birds anyway, did you?