The Effects on Pheasants of Corn Treated with Various Fungicides

Abstract

It is a well-established fact that pheasants pull and consume newly planted corn. Knowing that most farmers in Ohio now treat their seed corn with fungicides as a damping-off preventive, many sportsmen and game administrators have thought that the fungicides may have been a factor in the recent decline of pheasants. In 1947, based on the results of extensive and intensive studies, pheasants were believed to be no more than one-third as abundant in Ohio as in the 1941-1943 period. The fact that the common usage of fungicides on seed corn came at the same time as the major pheasant decline, helped strengthen this belief. Faced with numerous inquiries concerning this problem from Ohio sportsmen and from game administrators of other pheasant states, the Ohio Division of Conservation and Natural Resources requested the Ohio Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit to make a study to determine the effects, if any, of treated seed corn on pheasants. Accordingly, a project was initiated in June 1947. The results of the project, which ran through June 1948, are summarized here. It was found that seven materials