Why pollinators — and PF's Pollinator & Grasslands Week — matter.

By Tom Carpenter

Were I a preacher — and in a way, I guess I am — you would hear me shout it from a mountaintop. Or perhaps, in this case, a hogback on the prairie primeval, a hilly meadow in the Back 40, or a patch of tallgrass prairie flanking a creek or blanketing a ridgetop:

What's good for pollinators is good for PF & QF's namesake birds.

Stiff-stemmed forbs (better known as wildflowers) and native grasses offer pheasants and quail ideal habitat for living and hiding, nesting and hatching chicks, and rearing those magnificent little promises into adult birds to hunt.

If that's something you care about — and what PF or QF member doesn't? — therein is reason enough to be a fan of prime pollinator habitat.

But I know our PF & QF members. Know them quite well. In fact, I have yet to meet a member who doesn't also value the sheer wonders of healthy, diverse grasslands for everything else they provide.

• Teeming butterfly and bee life: wonders to behold, and wonders of the pollination function essential to all life.
• Songbirds and other wildlife delights.
• Essential water filtration and carbon sequestration services for our environment.
• Improved soil quality for growing the crops, and grazing the livestock, that help feed our world.

Our grasslands are imperiled. Habitat for pollinators, and the insect life that feeds young gamebirds, is disappearing. We cannot let this habitat vanish. Cannot.

Join us in learning more, and supporting the cause, this National Pollinator Week, June 22-28.

Commit yourself to a future filled with the joy of wildflowers alive with life of all kinds, waving grasses signifying care and love for the land … and, oh yes, the pheasants, quail and other gamebirds we love.

Tom Carpenter is editor at Pheasants Forever.