n annual Iowa pheasant population survey starts today (Monday) and it’ll be done by people in all 99 counties, driving up and down rural roads, looking for the birds and counting them. Todd Bogenschutz, a wildlife research biologist at the Iowa D-N-R, says indications show the popular game bird’s population is at least stable and is likely growing. “We’ve got a real good correlation between what we count on the roadside routes and what pheasant hunters ultimately harvest,” Bogenschutz says. “The weather conditions this past winter and spring were favorable for pheasants. There’s optimism about what we’re going to see next week when we start running the routes.”

The roadside survey is done every year during the first two weeks of August, or sometimes a little longer, depending on the weather. “We’ve got about two routes in every county and they’re three miles long,” he says. “We’ve been doing these same routes since the 1960s, usually the same staff run them every year and it gives as a real good index of the population. We have no way of counting all the pheasants out there but if we do it the same way every year, it gives us a real good trend indicator.”

Bogenschutz said the survey records the numbers of other animals the spotters see, including: quail, Hungarian partridges, cottontails and jackrabbits. The results of the survey will be released in early September. Iowa’s pheasant hunting season begins October 29th.

(Radio Iowa)