The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

In most contexts and conversations, the phrase “the birds and the bees” is a metaphor for explaining the mechanics of reproduction to younger children. Relying on imagery of bees pollinating and eggs hatching enables parents to portray sex as natural rather than having to provide a more technical explanation of human reproduction. However, with a new partnership between Pheasants Forever and local landowners, “the birds and the bees” might take on new meaning as the benefactors of Pollinator Habitat Projects.

The partnership was forged out of a desire to create diverse, high-quality upland game bird habitat, while also increasing critical pollinator habitat, especially as critical habitat is disappearing in the United States due in part to land development.

Declining pollinator habitat has been a hot-button topic across the nation, according to Hunter VanDonsel, a Farm Bill Biologist who works in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

To help address the habitat issue, in early 2017, VanDonsel decided to apply his Bachelor of Science Degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana by working with the North Central Chapter of Pheasants Forever. Serving Hill, Blaine, and Phillips counties, he assists landowners with conservation projects, wildlife habitat enhancements, and grassland restoration. “My job with Pheasants Forever is to improve habitat for all wildlife,” VanDonsel said.

One of these habitat improvement projects involved planting a 26-acre plot with a special seed mix in mid-November northwest of Chinook. “The seed mix contains seven different forbs and a couple of native grasses. The forbs each have different flowering periods, so the mix is designed to create wildlife forage throughout the growing season. Besides pollinator habitat, these flowering plants and grasses provide brood habitat for upland birds and other wildlife,” VanDonsel explained.

Organizations like the North Central Montana Pheasants Forever Chapter are involved with Pollinator Habitat Projects like this one because of their goal to create native wildflower and grassland plots that positively influence upland bird populations. “When honey bee, monarch butterfly, and other pollinator populations thrive, so do the pheasants,” said Chapter spokesperson Bob Markwardt. “We bought the seed from Wild Horse Seeds, and it cost over $4,000 to plant that Chinook acreage,” Markwardt added.

The high cost, according to VanDonsel, is due to the native forbs, which are hard to come by. “That mix cost $156.77 per acre,” he confirmed.

Preserving Montana’s pheasants and pollinators is actually an investment in Montana’s economy since Montana is known nationwide for both its pheasant hunting and its honey production. According to Ron Spomer, a free-lance outdoor writer and hunter, Montana is one of the country’s top eight pheasant hunting states, what he calls “the Great Eight.” Spomer names Glasgow, Lewistown, Havre, and Malta among his list of good headquarter towns for pheasant hunters.

“The Big Sky may be most famous for mountains and big game, but ringnecks in the northeast are a pretty big game of their own. In fact, they crow in good abundance in many lowland valleys, where grains are grown, and on the wheat high plains between Great Falls and Lewistown. There’s plenty of free access to chase them, too, a combination of millions of acres of private land in the Block Management Program, Waterfowl Protection Areas, State School lands, National Wildlife Refuges and many state Wildlife Management Areas,” Spomer claims.

Besides harboring one of the best wild pheasant populations in the country, Montana is one of the top honey-producing states. Each year, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) compiles a list of the top ten states that produce the largest amounts of honey. Although the USDA won’t publish final 2018 production tallies until early April 2019, Montana ranked in the top three for top honey-producing states in 2016 but dropped to number four in 2017, edged out by California. Holding on to the top two spots for several years, North and South Dakota produce a little more than one-third of the nation’s commercial honey supply.

Although most people relate honey bees to honey production, honey bees are also pollinators. These pollinators are essential to life as we know it because without their presence, we wouldn’t eat. Bees and butterflies pollinate 80 percent of flowering plants worldwide. In addition, honey bees are vital to agriculture, pollinating most of the fruit and vegetable crops that humans consume every day.

Beekeepers, like Wade Anderson of Bears Paw Apiaries in Chinook, provide migratory pollination services for many of these crops such as almonds, apples, cherries, and canola in several states, including California, Washington, and Montana. About one-third of global food production is dependent on pollinators to some degree. Grazing animals and agriculturalists alike depend on pollinators for their existence. “Scientists have determined that statistically, the honey bee is either directly or indirectly responsible for every third bite you eat,” Anderson stated.

These benefits are threatened by the continued loss of habitat and its subsequent effects on pollinators. Eastern monarch butterfly populations, for example, have declined by 90 percent in the last two decades as a result of habitat loss and drought.

Aaron Clausen, a conservation biologist who began working with the North Central Montana Chapter of Pheasants Forever but who now lives in Bozeman, explains this relationship: “Most bird species—including upland birds such as grouse and pheasants—require some level of flowering plant and insect diversity during their first three weeks of life. Other wildlife, such as deer, elk, sheep, and goats, browse a diversity of flowering plants and grasses to maintain their nutrition. Furthermore, healthy plant communities provide crucial services for our communities by maintaining water quality and soil health, which in turn creates favorable conditions for crop and livestock production. Some of those crops benefit from insects a second time through increased production facilitated by pollination.”

These facts explain why honey producers, hunters, agriculturalists, and landowners are working together to promote innovative programs like the Pollinator Habitat Project. To increase awareness and to generate interest in pollinator habitat projects, last June, in celebration of National Pollinator Week, Clausen conducted an On-Farm Habitat Tour at Vilicus Farms, an organic farm located at 23856 Road 265 North in Havre. Vilicus Farms hosted the tour to showcase habitat projects attracting birds, bees and other beneficial insects, to provide tips for plant establishment, and to discuss benefits of including habitat with agricultural operations. This tour was sponsored by Pheasants Forever, Xerces Society, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Soil & Water Conservations Districts of Montana.

According to Clausen, “Pollinator insect conservation is largely about putting desirable plants back on the landscape and restoring ecosystem function. Many of these functions – soil health, clean water, wildlife habitat, nutrient cycling, pest control, pollination services – are things we take for granted, and which have in many places been lost for one reason or another. Because these important functions are so dependent on desirable plant communities, and pollinator insects require flowers for food, the loss of these functions often coincides with the disappearance of pollinators. Conversely, the return of insects to a landscape indicates that ecosystem health is improving. In this way, pollinator insects are an excellent indicator of plant community and ecosystem health.

“As we learn more about pollinator insects, we have also discovered how scarce they have become in the face of land development and habitat loss. Restoring diverse plant communities and pollinator insects to the landscape is a challenge, particularly in the arid west, but everywhere there are examples of people taking an extra step to do so,” Clausen said.

Because they had been thinking about the notion of a pollinator project for some time, Brian Hockett and his wife attended the Vilicus Farms tour. “Both my folks and my wife and I are long time members and supporters of Pheasants Forever. We saw an opportunity to give a little back to the birds,” Hockett said.

“But this idea had to make sense from a farming perspective. So, we talked over the idea with Dick Nicholson, who has been farming that acreage for us for seven or eight years now. Dick has been really good to work with, and he agreed to the plan. We squared off about a 26-acre section, Pheasants Forever bought the seed, and Dick planted the field. The property is across from the cemetery and near the golf course northwest of Chinook. It’s all organic and near a wetland, so we have good, chemical-free habitat there. We’ll see how this mix does, and down the road, we might consider a similar tour,” Hockett explained.

Eleven years ago, the United States Senate unanimously approved the designation of a week in June as “National Pollinator Week,” marking a necessary step toward addressing the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations. Pollinator Week, which will be celebrated June 17-23 in 2019, has grown into an international celebration of the valuable ecosystem services provided by bees, birds, butterflies, bats and beetles. For those whose passions include spending any time outdoors, we have much to thank these pollinators for.

Anyone with questions about or interest in a Pollinator Habitat Project can call VanDonsel at 406-461-3827.