(Radio Iowa) – The early pheasant forecast shows hunters in Iowa could once again have a lot of birds to chase. D-N-R wildlife biologist Todd Bogenschutz uses weather information to predict pheasant numbers. “Our prediction is the population is going to be similar, might go up a little bit or down a little bit, but more or less unchanged from from last fall,” he says. If the bird numbers are up they would continue a positive trend.
“Last fall, the counts were the best we’d seen in 20 years. So you know, that kind of painting like we could have a fairly good hunting season this year. So based on what the weather model’s saying, it’s right about 80 percent of the time,” he says. Boegenschutz says the winter didn’t have any real extremes that hurt the adult birds, and spring weather was good for the hatch of the young birds.
“Twenty-five inches of snow and that’s kind of the long term average. Our spring weather was a little wetter than normal, April and May, about an inch and a half or so,” he says. “I thought seeing that that you know, usually our counts go down. But April and May were also really warm and so that’s usually good for nesting.” Bogenschutz says their annual roadside survey in August will help confirm the pheasant forecast. He says bird numbers to entice more hunters to get out.
“We generally see that hunter numbers tend to increase and decrease based on what they perceive the population’s going to be like,” he says. The 2025 numbers on the number of birds taken are expected to be released soon and Bogenschutz says they should they should be around 600 to 700 thousand.
