“Pheasant Fest,” the annual trade show for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, kicks off today in Iowa, and the resounding topic at the event will likely be concerning the state’s struggling pheasant population.
“The problem is in Iowa you don’t have very good winter habitat, and you don’t have very good nesting habitat,” Pheasants Forever’s spokesman Bob St. Pierre told the Des Moines Register. “It has been the perfect storm of bad scenarios.”
In an article published today, St. Pierre said the decision to bring the event back to Des Moines (it was held there in 2007), was partially related to the need for Iowa to return to its former elite status among the top pheasant-hunting states. The pheasant harvest in Iowa reached an all-time low last season, at 383,000, according to the Pheasants Forever website.
The number of pheasant hunters has also dropped sharply—from 200,000 in 1996 to less around 90,000 as of 2008, the Register article states.
Weather and loss of habitat are two the critical factors, and, the story adds, “habitat is shrinking as the ethanol industry fuels already high demand for corn.”
Upland bird hunting brings in $186 million a year in Iowa, the paper reports. That figure is down from an estimated $386 in 1996, the story says.
According to Pheasants Forever’s website, there are more of the conservation-organization’s chapters in Iowa than any other state.
Iowa reportedly has 1.6 million acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the federal program that allows farmers to set aside acreage in exchange for annual rental payments.
—Tom Tiberio