The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

My fiancée, Joan Holles, is signed up for a Women’s Learn to Hunt workshop for next weekend. When visiting her daughter in Orlando a few weeks back she shared this little tidbit with her daughter and son-in-law. The first words out of their mouths were “how could you ever even consider shooting a pheasant?”

This is a question often asked by the non-hunting public. They could not conceive of an idea where some animal is shot in order to eat it. Unless you are a vegetarian, this thought process makes no sense to me. Every slice of bacon or hamburger I eat, something had to die in order for me to eat it.

I am the first to proclaim that the only other bird that can measure up to the beauty of a pheasant is a wood duck. Both this waterfowl and upland bird are one of the most beautiful creatures on the earth. I have spent the past 40 years working on behalf of wildlife and the habitats they live in. I have also harvested more pheasants than any other hunter I know. I will make this statement and qualify why it is true. There are more pheasants on the landscape today because I shoot lots of them than there would be if I didn’t hunt them at all.

Pheasants are a creature to admire. Each season, a rooster pheasant will fight for his right to breed his harem. This harem numbers from 10-15 hens. Only the strongest rooster will be the one passing on his genes. Biology will tell that 99% of the hens will get bred every year. The hen will lay about 10-12 eggs and this reproduction effort will raise the pheasant population to its highest point of the normal year, about mid-June of each year.

Pheasant hunters can only harvest roosters. Hens are off limits and have been for decades. Pheasant hunters harvest roosters each season. It is impossible to over-harvest roosters in a controlled hunting season. The season lasts about 10 weeks and starts in the middle of October. The daily limit is two roosters per day.

When the hunting season is concluded there needs to remain enough roosters to ensure that each and every hen gets bred the following spring. Research that has been done exhaustively for decades indicated that it only takes about one rooster per 42 hens to maintain a pheasant population. It takes one rooster for every 24 hens to grow a pheasant population. At the end of the Minnesota pheasant hunting season there is about one rooster alive for every four hens.

Let’s do the math. If after the season was over, 50% of the remaining roosters were harvested this would leave the ratio at one rooster per eight hens. If 50% of those remaining roosters were then harvested yet again it would leave the ratio of one rooster per 16 hens. This is still more than enough roosters to grow a pheasant population.

In a nutshell, if after the season was completed you could remove 75% of the remaining roosters and all of the hens would still get bred the following season. Roosters make up a renewable resource and hunting them does not effect overall pheasant populations.

Here are a few additional interesting points about harvesting roosters. Roosters will aggressively compete for limited available food sources and suitable winter cover if conditions get bad during the winter time. They will actually drive the hens away from food and cover. This results in higher-than-normal hen mortality and, even if they don’t die, they will very likely enter the nesting season in much poorer physical condition.

Poor hen conditions result in smaller broods and less reproduction. Harvesting excess roosters can actually improve nesting success the following reproductive cycle.

The number one limiting factor for pheasant reproduction in southwest Minnesota is lack of undisturbed grassland cover. Other factors like harsh winters or wet springs certainly have a negative effect, but not nearly as large as lack of abundant nesting cover.

When people hunt for pheasants, they usually spend their time, effort, energy and large amounts of money to help propagate pheasants. This is done with license fees and attending conservation banquets whose mission it is to provide habitat for wildlife. More habitat means more pheasants and other associated wildlife. This includes both game and non-game species.

How many folks do you know who don’t hunt pheasants and still spend lots of time and money on their behalf? The answer is just about zero. I didn’t say zero. There are some folks out there who care about wildlife but are non-hunters.

At the end of the day, shooting one of the most beautiful game birds in North America has no measurable impact on their overall populations. I encourage you to participate in one of Minnesota’s greatest traditions. If twice as many hunters were in the field this fall it still would have no impact in the fall of 2025. Like I said early on, pheasants are a creature to admire.

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.