The 2011 Iowa pheasant harvest reflected what the roadside counts had predicted, that the population was down after five winters with above average snowfall followed by five wetter than normal springs.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources estimates that 109,000 roosters were harvested during the 2011 hunting season, the lowest since standardized estimates began in 1962. Harvest was highest in the northwest region, followed by central and southwest.
The harvest estimate is based on a random survey of hunters. The survey is used by the DNR to estimate the number of hunters pursuing small game, hunter effort by species and harvest.
The survey collects data on quail, cottontail rabbit, squirrel, partridge, and mourning dove, in addition to pheasants.
According to the survey, an estimated 57,285 mourning doves were harvested during Iowa’s inaugural mourning dove hunting season.
Predictions for Iowa’s 2012 pheasant population and season forecast will be issued based on the upcoming August roadside survey that will take place Aug. 1-15, on more than 200, 30-mile routes.
Weather patterns this past winter and spring suggest Iowa will see its first significant increase in pheasant numbers in 6 years.
It truly breaks my heart to see all the thousands of mature trees being taken down so the farmers can plant more crops. Will we have any trees left? Trees and plants contribute to our good health. They give off oxygen and absorb harmful carbon dioxide. We need them!
Ethanol has destroyed the land. More and marginal land is turned into corn and bean fields.
Isn’t it time to move beyond corn and bean agriculture?
Maybe a 4 or 5 year dust bowl would show farmers you can not rape the land. You have to leave something!
The Pheasant population has NOTHING to do with the weather! It is the continued practice of the DNR and farmers to burn ditches and land during nesting season. This is absolutely ridiculous. How can they ever repopulate when they are burnt out year after year during nesting season? And it is not just pheasants, where are the meadow larks, quail, bob white, and jack rabbits? No more BS DNR, you caused this problem!
The practice of burning actually does more harm than good in some instances. I have talked to several DNR people who claim they do not do controlled burns during nesting season. Maybe you were seeing private property burnt. Numbers of some species have been down for some time now and have nothing to do anything being burned off. I feel most wildlife numbers always decline during time of high crop or land prices. As these prices go up, habitat seems to disappear as well.