As a human, you take a census every ten years. If you were a pheasant, you’d take one every summer. Or rather, observers with the Game Fish and Parks would take the census for you, counting as they drove through the countryside. It’s the annual pheasant brood count, conducted from July 25th to August 15th each year.
A reporter’s life can be an interesting and varied one. Sometimes you attend press conferences, or sit down to do interviews in offices. Other times you’re told: meet me at the gas station on the north side of the road in Wessington. Before dawn. No, I’m not on some covert spy mission. I’m meeting with Travis Runia, an upland game bird biologist for South Dakota Game Fish and Parks, and we’re going to count pheasants!
We start out at about 6:30 in the morning.
“We’re conducting one of our road side surveys,” Runia says. “It’s our best survey we have for estimating our pheasant abundance each year. Throughout South Dakota we have 110 routes that are 30 miles long, and we run these exact same routes the same time of year each year to try to get an estimate on our abundance from one year to the next. We can also estimate our abundance say to the last decade or so, to try to let hunters and sportsmen know what they can expect in the fall.”
Pheasant season is kind of a big deal in South Dakota. Runia says some years, up to 100,000 non-residents and 70,000 residents take part in the hunt. He says the results of the pheasant brood count may help hunters decide whether or not to visit South Dakota in the fall. And because those hunters have a deep economic impact on many communities, it’s important that we see some pheasants today.
“Alright, so we’re about ten minutes after sunrise this morning but with the cloudy weather right now’s about when we’re going to start the survey,” Runia says. “And what we’re basically going to do is drive this 30 mile route at about 25 miles an hour and record all of the roosters and hens and broods we see within an eighth of a mile of the roadway. Most of the pheasants we encounter during these surveys are typically right on the road or in the ditches, so that’s kind of the area that we look for.”
Pheasant counting is perhaps done best as a solitary activity. Just a Game Fish and Parks employee, alone on the open road with only his or her thoughts and various wildlife to keep him or her company. It is not done best when there’s a chatty reporter in the passenger seat being distracting by trying to ask all sorts of questions.
“There was a pheasant with some pheasant chicks in the ditch,” Runia says. “We kind of drove by them and didn’t get a very good look at them. We’re going to drive slow here and see if we can see him again. Oh there goes one, you see him? There were two pheasant chicks, and I saw the hen the first time that we drove by. She’s probably here close.”
All of the data collection is done either on a GPS or a smart phone. Runia types in that he saw a hen with a brood and his GPS saves the information, along with the location of where the pheasants were spotted. Once an observer is finished with the route, all of the information is collected into a central database. Officials spend the next couple of weeks analyzing the data and getting a report ready for the public.
Conditions today aren’t the greatest for counting pheasants. Ideally, there should be heavy dew on the ground, which drives pheasants onto the road to catch a bit of sun to dry off. But it’s been raining off and on all morning, and Runia says it might be the first time he’s done pheasant surveys with lightening in the background.
Still, we do see quite a few birds, even if the brown hens do blend into their surroundings, making them sometimes a bit tough to spot.
This early morning drive in the South Dakota countryside, watching pheasants fly from the ditches and into cornfields, kind of makes me feel like I’m in a Terry Redlin painting. This picture is drawn in greens and grays and browns, due to the overcast sky, and the combination of fields and pastures. The scenery that makes this such a lovely image also makes a good place for pheasants to live. Runia says pheasants flourish in South Dakota because of the habitat.
“You can see as we’re driving today, right now we’ve got a big pasture on our left hand side, which is a place where a pheasant could nest,” Runia says. “On our right hand side we see a cornfield which produces food for pheasants. And the whole time we’re driving today we’re seeing this mosaic of habitats which really helps out pheasants during all life cycles during the whole year. And that’s why South Dakota has the most pheasants.”
But, Runia says, a good pheasant habitat doesn’t just happen. He says South Dakota has seen a lot of CRP grassland loss. He says a strong farm bill with conservation programs is extremely important for the pheasant habitat. He says some issues at the state level are currently being looked at by the Governor’s pheasant habitat work group. Runia says he’s optimistic that officials will create positive changes in the coming years.
Thirty miles and an hour and a half after beginning the day’s count, we’re headed back to the gas station in Wessington. Today we saw 16 roosters, 23 hens, and 12 broods, which Runia says isn’t too bad considering the thunderstorms. It’s close to last year’s numbers. Today’s count is added into the database. The public can see the results around Labor Day, and gain a glimpse into what this year’s hunting season may look like.