Pheasant numbers hold steady

Key weather indicators point to a 'status quo” year for pheasants in Iowa, according to Todd Bogenschutz, upland game biologist for the Department of Natural Resources.

Statewide winter snowfall averaged 4 inches below normal, which suggests an above-average survival rate for hens, the limiting factor in pheasant production, Bogenschutz said.

But favorable winter survival conditions have been more or less offset by a wetter than normal nesting season, he said.

Rainfall in April was near normal, but it was more than an inch above normal in May, which turned out to be Iowa's 35th wettest May on record, Bogenschutz said.

The combined April-May statewide average rainfall of 8.6 inches exceeds the 8-inch threshold above which pheasant production begins to decline, he said.

'The good winter was definitely a plus, and I am thinking we are probably going to see some population gains this year,” he said.

Bogenschutz said he has received many reports of pheasant overwintering success and early hatched pheasant broods.

'Early hatches often indicate a good pheasant year,” he said.

The early hatched broods, with chicks fully feathered and able to fly, are better able to avoid predators and withstand heavy summer rains, he said.

Bogenschutz said he is still compiling last year's harvest estimates, which indicate that Iowa hunters harvested more pheasants than the estimated 166,554 roosters taken in the preceding year.

Pheasant harvests have been inching up each year since 2011, when they bottomed out at 108,905.

Last year's August roadside survey, the key predictor for hunter success, yielded a statewide index of 17.4 birds per 30-mile route - an increase of 151 percent over the preceding year.

Based primarily on improved prospects, as indicated by the roadside index increase, the number of Iowa pheasant hunters increased by more than 9,000 last year, Bogenschutz said.

l Comments: (319) 934-3172; orlan.love@thegazette.com