Minnesota roadside pheasant count up 17% from last year

The annual summer season roadside depend for pheasants in Minnesota confirmed a 17% improve over 2021, the state Division of Pure Sources introduced Thursday.

The depend confirmed a mean of 48 pheasants per 100 miles of roadway pushed by wildlife employees in counties the place pheasants are current, up from 41 final 12 months.

That depend is also about 18% above the current 10-year common however nonetheless manner down from the long-term common of 90.6 pheasants per 100 miles.

Solely far southwestern Minnesota noticed a decline in birds, by 8%, from final 12 months’s roadside depend.

“The climate actually cooperated this 12 months by way of producing favorable nesting circumstances for pheasants,” mentioned Tim Lyons, DNR upland sport analysis scientist. “Pheasant numbers are typically pretty much as good or higher than final 12 months.”

Minnesota’s 2022 pheasant looking season runs Oct. 15 to Jan. 1.

Climate and habitat are the principle influences on Minnesota’s pheasant inhabitants traits, DNR wildlife officers mentioned. Climate causes annual fluctuations in pheasant numbers, whereas habitat drives long-term inhabitants traits. Presently, habitat — particularly the variety of acres enrolled within the federal Conservation Reserve Program — is diminished from peak pheasant years as excessive corn costs encourage farmers to plant extra crops and set much less land apart for wildlife.

Minnesota’s pheasant harvest dropped from 1.8 million birds in 1941 to only 226,679 birds by 2019 as grassland habitat declined quickly.

Monitoring pheasant inhabitants traits is a part of the DNR’s annual roadside wildlife survey, which started in 1955. Wildlife managers and conservation officers within the farmland areas conduct the survey in the course of the first half of August. This 12 months’s survey consisted of 166 routes that have been 25 miles lengthy, with 147 routes situated within the pheasant vary.

Observers drive every route early within the morning and file the variety of farmland wildlife sport species they see.

The “2022 August Roadside Survey” report, a map of pheasant looking prospects, information for different surveyed species, and data on looking rules and bag limits can be found on the DNR pheasant looking web page at

mndnr.gov/Searching/Pheasant

.