Pheasants: Just the facts

Fifteen fun facts from pheasant land that might boost a hunter's fortunes afield Saturday when Minnesota's 2010 ringneck season opens amid predictions of a 400,000-bird harvest similar to last year's.

1 The first state to offer a pheasant season was ... South Dakota? Wrong. It was Oregon, in 1892, following the shipment 11 years earlier of 30 ringnecks from China by Judge Owen Nickerson Denny, then the U.S. consul to China. Twenty-six birds survived the journey and were released near Denny's home in Oregon's Wilmette Valley.

2 Minnesota's first season was four days long, in 1923, with a harvest of 300 birds. The next year the season was closed. But the birds multiplied quickly in the lightly (compared to today) farmed landscape of southern and western Minnesota. By 1928, the season was extended to 18 days and a harvest of 168,000 birds was recorded.

3 The state's harvest this year is expected to be about 400,000 birds, unchanged from 2009. A pleasant surprise, this, considering how severe much of the winter was across southern and, especially, southwest Minnesota. But recall that spring came early, and March was uncommonly warm. That and the apparent over-winter survival of reasonably good numbers of hens kept disaster at bay, and even allowed for slight population increases in parts of the pheasant range.

4 How devastating can bad winters be to pheasants? Consider that in 1963, 1,040,000 birds were killed by hunters in Minnesota. But a mere six years later the season was closed statewide for lack of birds -- a management decision that was controversial at the time and likely didn't repair the state's ringneck numbers.

5 In some states where pheasants are hunted, pointing breeds of sporting dogs outnumber Labradors, which is the most popular hunting dog in Minnesota. At least two reasons explain this. One is that states like Kansas have far less water and waterfowl hunting than Minnesota does, so multispecies hunting dogs such as Labs often play second fiddle to upland specialists such as setters and pointers. Another is that Labs often prevail in heavy cover such as cattail sloughs, which are plentiful in Minnesota, while setters and pointers shine in bigger, more open country.

6 Pheasants Forever (PF) was founded in St. Paul in 1982, and Minnesota still has more members -- 23,919 -- than any other state. Counterintuitively perhaps, given the severity of the recession, PF's 2010 Minnesota membership is up from 22,579 a year ago. Nationally, the group's membership grew from 117,976 in 2009 to 125,085 this year.

8 Minnesota has 77 PF chapters that since the group's inception have raised and spent nearly $37 million on habitat -- $27 million of which has been used to make 369 land acquisitions. Most of those purchases are now state wildlife management areas and federal waterfowl production areas. Minnesota PF members have raised and spent another $4 million, approximately, for conservation education and awareness programs.

9 The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has estimated the average per-hunter seasonal pheasant harvest since 1960. Considering that the statewide kill in 1961 was 1,304,000 (in a 30-day season), it would seem reasonable the per-hunter kill of 4.8 birds that year would be the highest recorded in the last half-century or so. Wrong. The estimated seasonal take of 5.3 birds in 2007 (during an 81-day season) was the highest in that period.

10 In 2002, a sportsmen's and sportswomen's oversight committee urged the DNR to develop a long-range pheasant plan calling for future harvests (incrementally, over time) of 450,000, 750,000 and 1 million birds. A proposal was subsequently written that generally called for expanding state and federal habitat acres in Minnesota, thereby increasing birds. And through 2008, it appeared to work, as harvests rose to as high as 655,000. But serendipity and seven consecutive warm winters were mostly responsible for the rooster rebound. Reality returned in 2009, when the harvest dropped to 400,000, and as federal Conservation Reserve Program acres continue to be lost.

11 Talk about a reversal of fortunes. Iowa not that many years ago vied with South Dakota to record the highest annual pheasant kills. Those days are long gone, and today Iowa ringnecks are in a shambles. First to be drastically reduced in number -- because of weather and habitat changes -- were Iowa pheasants and quail south of Interstate Hwy. 80. Then a series of icy winters and rain-soaked nesting seasons lampooned birds in the northern part of the state. Couple those with a drastic reduction in CRP acres in Iowa, and birds there have become so hard to find in many areas that a drive to release game-farm birds on private property has taken hold.

12 One hope for Iowa is the upcoming November election, during which voters will give thumbs up or down on that state's version of Minnesota's Legacy Amendment. A yes vote won't immediately result in more habitat but will set the stage for future wildlife and landscape improvements.

14 What will be in store for uplanders Saturday, when Minnesota's 2010 ringneck season debuts? Look for most of the beans and a good portion of the corn to be harvested, even across large swaths of the south and southwest, which took the brunt of recent rains. This assumes reasonably temperate weather continues this week.

15 Good to remember: Shooting accidents can occur when pheasant hunters lose track of where their companions are and are startled into pulling the trigger without carefully assessing the landscape when a rooster flushes. Blaze orange increases visibility in these instances, and lots of blaze orange increases visibility lots more. Also, because barbed-wire cuts and other mishaps often occur to pheasant-hunting dogs on weekends, it's a good idea to know in advance the phone numbers of veterinarians who will be on duty on Saturday and Sunday in areas you plan to hunt.