More Deets on SD Pheasant Forecast
To follow up on yesterday’s post, here are some good deets on the South Dakota count/forecast from an article at ArgusLeader.com. Highlights:
> The decline from the 10-year average is 41 percent. But Travis Runia, GF&P senior upland game biologist, who prepared the report, noted that the past 10 years have been epic in the state’s pheasant hunting history. It peaked in 2007, when 77,788 resident hunters and 103,048 nonresidents killed 2.1 million birds.
> Even last year, with the nation’s economy still feeling the lingering effects of recession, 72,465 resident hunters and 100,189 nonresidents ventured afield and killed 1.8 million pheasants.
> “South Dakota’s pheasant abundance is still comparable to levels of the 1990s to early 2000s, when pheasant harvest averaged a respectable 1.2 million birds annually,”
Runia said. “Sportsmen should still expect good pheasant hunting in 2011, especially in the central part of the state.”
> The areas of greatest decline this year are in counties east of the James River. “The whole I-29 corridor is substantially below last year and the 10-year average,” Runia said. “A lot of that has to do with extremely wet springs the last four springs. We’ve also lost one-third of our CRP grassland acreage [representing] a major portion of nesting habitat in an otherwise intense agricultural landscape.”
> In 2007, throughout South Dakota there were 1.55 million acres of CRP grassland.
That has shrunk to 1.17 million acres….
> In the central part of the state around Winner, Chamberlain and Pierre, where there is still abundant grass, the declines are only 15 percent, 32 percent and 34 percent.
> “We’ve seen in the past, after harsh winters like this, populations decline,” Runia said. “Within a year or two, they are back to high levels. We could really use an open winter.
Unfortunately, we have not had one for three years.”
Interesting stuff, but as Mike Stephenson, Pheasants Forever regional coordinator in South Dakota, says late in the article: “As much as everything is down, it’s still South Dakota hunting.”
Same deal for Maine ruffies. Even though Maine is supposed to be off a bit this year due to a wet spring, it’ll still be better than any other ruffed grouse hunting on the East Coast.
More
A few more tidbits from the article:
> Cathy Fink, coordinator of the Redfield Chamber of Commerce, said hunting operations at Redfield “are filling up just like every other year.” Fink said last year she began noticing an influx of hunters who formerly hunted in Iowa….
> With corn selling for about $7 a bushel after going for less than half of that a few years ago, farmers also could be less inclined to offer commercial hunting on their land….
> Bird guide Mark Kuipers also noticed that the corps of pheasant hunters is aging. “A lot of people have had hunters for 30 or 40 years. They’re getting to be a dying breed,” he said.
Category: 2011, Forecasts/counts, Pheasants, SD
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
