Corn had become one of the most important wildlife food in the United States. It is eaten by a wide variety of animals, including white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus ), raccoon (Procyon lotor ), ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus , wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo ), and many species of aquatic birds. Damage to unharvested crops had been documented, but many birds and mammals eat waste grain after harvest and do not conflict with agriculture. A good method for measuring waste-corn availability can be essential to studies concerning food density and food and feeding habits of field-feeding wildlife. Previous methods were developed primarily for approximating losses due to harvest machinery. In this paper, a method is described for estimating the amount of waste corn potentially available to wildlife. Detection of temporal changes in food availability and differences caused by agricultural operations (e.g., recently harvested stubble fields vs. plowed fields) are discussed.
