Andrew Rick and Bennett Sebert are avid pheasant hunters. The 2022 graduates of West Central High School in Hartford, S.D., know that landowners in their home state depend on the added income from leasing land for pheasant hunting.
As West Central FFA members, Rick and Sebert researched the effectiveness of different pheasant stocking methods for their National FFA Agriscience Fair project with the goal of supporting wildlife conservation, such as habitat restoration, and the local economy.
“With local wild pheasant populations declining, a lot of commercial operations in the area are stocking pheasants to supplement hunts,” says Rick. “Stocking is also a good option in areas where there’s not good wild pheasant habitat.”
For their National FFA Agriscience Fair project, Rick and Sebert compared the shotgun, crate and hands-on stocking methods.
In the shotgun method, pheasants are taken out of their crates for immediate release. The crate method involves pheasants walking out of their crates on their own. Birds were carried from their crates and left in the field in the hands-on method. All of the experiments were carried out in fields.
Rick and Sebert checked on the pheasants over three days to assess their rate of retention and discovered the crate method had the highest rate with up to 80% of pheasants remaining in the area of their release. Between 18% and 28% of pheasants released with the shotgun method flew off, making it the least successful stocking method.
It was the third National FFA Agriscience Fair project that Rick and Sebert worked on together. The pair placed sixth at the 2021 National Agriscience Fair. Sebert believes choosing a project based on a mutual interest and sharing their passion during the interviews helped them stand out.
“South Dakota is known for pheasant hunting, and we knew we had a solid, competitive project going in,” he says. “I expected us to be near the top.”
The project was more than an academic success. Linda Petersen, West Central FFA advisor, believes the findings also have practical applications.
“If Andrew and Bennett can figure out the best way to stock pheasants to get them to stay put for successful hunts, hunters are more likely to come back and spend money in our state. Landowners might even want to hire people like Andrew and Bennett to provide hunters a good hunting experience,” she says.
Learn how your passions, skills and interests can collide through the agriscience fair.
