The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department’s annual survey released Friday morning shows a 45 percent decline statewide in the number of pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) per mile compared to 2016. The results showed a statewide pheasants-per-mile index of 1.68, down from last year’s index of 3.05. This year is the second-lowest pheasants-per-mile index since 1979, slightly above 2013’s dismal preseason index of 1.52. That year, an estimated 979,000 pheasants were harvested, one of three years since 1991 that hunters in South Dakota did not harvest more than 1 million pheasants.
From late July through mid-August, GF&P surveyed 110, 30-mile routes across the state to estimate production. Survey routes are grouped into 13 regions, based on a local city. The Mitchell region saw a 32 percent decrease from last year and is down 48 percent from the 10-year average. The Winner area is down 48 percent from 2016 and Chamberlain dropped 42 percent. Statewide, only 16 routes of the 110 surveyed showed an increase in pheasants-per-mile from 2016.
That’s tough news for pheasant hunters, whose statewide season opens Oct. 21 and runs through Jan. 7. The three-day resident-only season on public lands is Oct. 14-16. Runia expects the decline in population to impact the number of nonresident hunters who travel to South Dakota this year. Last year, about 143,000 resident and nonresident hunters trekked across the state’s fields in search of roosters. In 2013, the last time there’s been a significantly large decrease from one year to the next, there were about 132,000 pheasant hunters in South Dakota.
Source: The Daily Republic, August 25, 2017
http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/local/4317543-pheasant-survey-show…
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