Where have all the pheasants gone?

[tractorshopper]

I grew up in the thumb of Michigan and we had lots of pheasants when i was a kid. I now understand they are not around anymore, but as other's suggest, I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the small farms being gobbled up by the big farms and the old fence rows disappearing. I have fond memories of watching my uncle's Britney spaniels working those birds. Really sad.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Pheasants were stocked her back in the 50's, but they never took hold. I heard several stories; one that the soil wouldn't support a hard shell on their eggs (I doubt this) and another was that the chiggers killed off their chicks. I doubt the latter reason also. I suspect it has to do with habitat; cover and grain. In Northern Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, they are...or at least were...thick. They raise a lot of corn and grain sorghum there, and the fields and fence rows is where we would hunt them. I have always had an aversion to GMO grains, and I suspect that these new grains may have something to do with it.

 

[blackdog2086]

Not sure if this applies, but I read that game bird populations can be significantly affected by how close to the fence line you mow, and how much natural cover is left for them on a farm. My State Biologist here in East Texas told me that the biggest reason we don't have turkeys anymore is that the natural habitat, what the land was like 200 years ago, is not the same anymore. Over the decades, the land has been cleared, logged, farmed and then gone wild again. When it goes wild, you get a massive amount of small trees that choke out everything else. It will take a thousand years for Mother Nature to make it right again.

I can understand a change over a long period of time, but the loss of pheasants here was really quick by comparison. Same with the increase in turkeys.

 

[mcfarmall]

None here in SW Michigan. Loss of habitat (fence rows) and increase in predators (red-tailed hawk, coyote, etc.) have pretty much eliminated them from the area. SW Kansas has a bunch of them though.

 

[TheMan419]

About 5 min from my house we have a pheasant hunting preserve. They literally raise the birds and place them out for you when you come hunt. You pay by the number of birds you want placed out.

 

[kcflhrc]

The **** Turkey's are the problem. That's what has killed off all the Pheasant and Quail in Kansas.

 

[nybirdman]

I worked in South-East Michigan in the late 1970's and was amazed the numbers of pheasant along the roads.
In NY state South of the thru-way there "used"to be good numbers of birds.Don't know what happened to these areas;assume loss of habitat/farming practices/insecticides.
In my area Northern NY we only had a few scattered around;we did have a decent population of Hungarian Partridge but they are gone.We still have decent numbers of Ruffed Grouse.
I hatch and raise 800-1000 pheasant/year and few survive till spring.

 

[dodge man]

I live outside of town and through my work as a land surveyor work in a lot of rural areas. I have seen exactly 1 pheasant in the wild in 34 years, and that was close to my house. There was an area that we were kicking up a lot of them but it turned out the owner of the property had turned a bunch of them loose. I do see Bobwhites a few times a year but not very often. I have also heard the turkeys take out the eggs of other birds but don't know this for a fact. There are a lot of turkeys out there now.

 

[Ritothebull]

When I grew up in North Jersey there were plenty of corn fields and if we were hunting pheasant thats where we would find them. It's been 35 years since I lived there and most of the farms have been turned into housing developements so I doubt I would find any there now.

 

[bigtiller]

Iowa just finished the 2018 statewide population survey of pheasants. They predict a statewide harvest estimate of 250,000 to 300,000 roosters this fall.