Governor to convene pheasant summit this year

Saying he has enjoyed pheasant hunting in Minnesota for nearly 60 years, Gov. Mark Dayton announced Friday he will convene a summit of wildlife and farm experts later this year to find ways to boost the state's "ringneck'' population.

"Decisions we make today will determine whether future generations of Minnesotans will have those same [hunting] opportunities,'' said Dayton in a statement. "I look forward to convening this Minnesota pheasant summit and developing strategies to improve the pheasant population in our state."

Roadside surveys conducted in August by the Department of Natural Resources found pheasant numbers 58 percent below the 10-year average, and 71 percent below the long-term average.

"Getting wildlife and farm experts together can't hurt,'' said Bob Dalager of Morris, a founder in the early 1980s of the Stevens County Pheasants Forever chapter, and a past national board member of that group.

A lifelong upland bird hunter who has seen pheasant numbers rise and fall in west-central Minnesota, Dalager, a lawyer, knows quick fixes will be elusive.

"We've lost our Conservation Reserve Program acres out here, or most of them,'' he said, "and at the prices farmers have been paying for land in recent years, they're not likely to put it into wildlife habitat anytime soon.''

Introduced to Minnesota in 1905 when the Department of Game and Fish, as it was called, released 70 pairs of the birds, pheasants were first hunted in the state in 1924.

Just 300 roosters — male birds — were killed that year during a four-day hunt in Hennepin and Carver counties.

But seven years later, 49 counties were opened to pheasant hunting, and more than 1 million birds were killed in a 10-day season.

Pheasants flourished at the time because state farmlands bore little resemblance to those that now extend south and west of the metro.

Hedgerows were common, as were brushy tree lines. Wetlands pitted the countryside. And croplands were not yet sprayed with the fertilizers and other chemicals that today's highly productive corn and soybean fields require.

The state's record pheasant harvest occurred in 1941, when nearly 1.8 million birds were killed in just 17 days — a bag that included hens. After that, bird numbers declined before rising again in the late 1950s, thanks to the federal government's Soil Bank farmland set-aside program.

Minnesota's largest roosters-only harvest occurred in 1958, when nearly 1.6 million birds were killed.

By comparison, state wildlife officials forecast a harvest this fall of 200,000 birds, in part because of wet spring and early summer nesting conditions.

Still, wildlife experts say, habitat losses are the primary pheasant population suppressor.

Headquartered in the metro, Pheasants Forever likely will join leaders from Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, the Minnesota Waterfowl Association and other groups at the summit, along with state and federal farm and wildlife managers.

"Wildlife habitat protection and creation takes collaboration,'' said Joe Duggan of Pheasants Forever, "so we're thrilled to see Gov. Dayton bringing partners together from the state's conservation and agricultural communities to find sustainable, long-term upland habitat solutions."

Dayton's announcement follows a similar summit convened earlier this year in South Dakota by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.