Ring-necked pheasants’ unlikely journey to becoming an Iowa icon
From the Iowa Department of Natural Resources
It was still an hour before the 2024 pheasant season would open but the birds were there and they were ready. Cackles and crowing were coming from all across the Kossuth County prairie as hunters whispered with anticipation – today would be one for the memories was the consensus.
Judging by the parking lots at the public hunting areas across north Iowa, that opinion was a popular one.
Pheasants are not native to the United States but seem to have found a home in the Plains and upper Midwest. Iowa’s birds can be traced back to a wind storm in 1901 that damaged William Benton’s private game farm in Cedar Falls, liberating around 2,000 pheasants. Rumor had it, Benton obtained his stock from a Tacoma, Wash. importer.
That unintentional release was followed by intentional stockings in 1908-09 by private landowners in Kossuth and O’Brien counties that helped the exotic birds get a foothold in northern Iowa. By 1910, the state Conservation Commission got involved, purchasing 6,200 eggs and distributed them to farmers in 82 counties. Farmers would often have hen houses where the pheasant eggs would be placed alongside chicken eggs.
At the time, Iowa’s countryside consisted of too-wet-to-farm sloughs and small farms, with a patchwork of corn, oats, hay, pasture and beet fields, which was a perfect match for the ring-necked pheasant. Soon, it became clear that wild birds were better equipped to survive than captive birds and in 1915, farmers were encouraged to trap and move wild birds to new areas.
The expanding pheasant population began to cause localized crop damage to the point that 130 farmers in Hancock County petitioned the state to open a hunting season. In 1925, Iowa allowed pheasant hunting in 13 north central counties for three days in the fall, opening at noon each day. In these early seasons, hens were occasionally legal to shoot along with roosters. In 1943, the birds were so numerous that Iowa held a spring season in addition to the regular fall season.
“These early seasons were extremely conservative, lasting only three to five days,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
In 1936, the Conservation Commission conducted its first roadside population survey in September and October. The survey evolved in these early years before moving to early August and becoming standardized in 1962.
Pheasants continued to expand across the state and additional counties were opened to hunting. The state was divided into zones based on estimated bird population – the Long Zone in northern Iowa had a 2- to-3-week season; the Short Zone in southern Iowa had a 5-12-day season.
In 1955, hunters bagged an estimated 1.5 million birds. Around 1959, shooting hours were standardized and pheasant hunting moved into the modern era with one season statewide and was open in more than 80 counties, with only far southeast Iowa still closed.
While pheasants were expanding their reach, Iowa’s agriculture community began to change, going from more than 6.8 million acres planted to small grains in 1950, to 1.29 million acres in 1972. Soybeans that had been planted on 1.9 million acres in 1950, increased to 6 million acres in 1972.
Changes to Iowa’s countryside accelerated during the farm crisis in the 1980s.
The 1985 Farm Bill created the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to reduce crop production to allow grain prices to recover, and Iowa producers enrolled 76,000 acres in the program by the end of the year. The second round of enrollments increased to 1.2 million acres. By 1993, 2.2 million acres of crop fields were enrolled and converted to grasslands.
When added to existing hay and small grains, Iowa had an estimated 4.5 million acres of pheasant friendly habitat, up from 2.9 million acres in 1983.
“CRP wasn’t a new idea. Its premise was similar to the soil bank in the 1950s and 60s,” Bogenschutz said. “Grain prices recovered quickly and pheasants responded to the expanded habitat.”
With the goal of improving grain prices achieved, the focus of CRP shifted to prioritize native seed plantings, seed mix diversity and specific landscapes. The federal Farm Bill had become the most important habitat program for the state.
Rise and Fall of bird numbers
Iowa’s pheasant population is heavily influenced by winter and spring weather – mild winters with little snow followed by warm dry spring is good for survival and reproduction; conversely, cold, snowy winters with cool, wet springs isn’t good for pheasants.
The consecutive bad winters and wet springs from 2008-12 saw Iowa’s bird numbers plummet to an all-time low harvest of 109,000 roosters in 2011, and hunter participation bottomed out at 41,000, two years later.
However, droughts benefit ground nesting birds – including pheasants – and the recent string of droughts followed by mild winters has returned bird populations to pre-crash levels.
Iowa is a national pheasant hunting destination, second only to South Dakota in bird harvest, with hunters harvesting nearly 600,000 roosters in 2023.
Much of the harvest estimate is dependent upon hunters in the field. The last time Iowa’s pheasant harvest topped one million birds was in 2003, when there were an estimated 142,000 resident and nonresident hunters. In 2023, that estimate was 83,000.
“Our pheasant population is similar to 2007 when the harvest was around 700,000 birds,” he said. “The only difference from today is we don’t have the number of pheasant hunters as we did in 2007. Harvest is driven by bird numbers, but also how many people are pulling the trigger.”
A century of pheasant hunting
The Iowa DNR and Pheasants Forever are celebrating 100 years of pheasant hunting in the Hawkeye State. The first season was held Oct. 20-22, 1925, when 13 counties in north central Iowa were opened to pheasant hunting. Hunters were allowed a three-rooster limit, for a half-day of hunting. An estimated 75,000 hunters participated.
Hunters can commemorate the 100th anniversary by purchasing a hard card featuring Iowa Pheasants Forever Print of the Year when they purchase their 2025 hunting and fishing licenses.
Information on places to hunt, the August roadside survey results and more is available online by clicking the 100 Years of Pheasant Hunting graphic at www.iowadnr.gov/pheasantsurvey.