In Iowa, pheasant shooters had good years in both 2023 and 2024.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources released harvest data for the fall season. It shows that about 460,000 roosters were killed in 2024, making it the second-best pheasant season in almost twenty years.
There were fewer roosters killed by shooters in 2024 than there were in 2023, when 590,000 were killed. But DNR said this was to be expected because bird numbers had dropped 14% since 2023, as shown in surveys done in August 2024.
Upland wildlife scientist Todd Bogenschutz with the DNR said that there were more than 77,400 hunters for pheasants in 2024, which was less than the 83,600 hunters who did the same thing in 2023.
Only South Dakota had more hunters and bigger bags of pheasants in 2024, with about 140,200 shooters killing 1.3 million roosters.
Records from the past of Iowa’s pheasant seasons show that shooting levels were high as recently as 1995. Since then, populations have gone down because of “catastrophic” weather years from 2007 to 2011 and fewer acres in the Conservation Reserve Programme, which gives birds the space they need.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the CRP programme, said that 1.67 million acres were signed up for the programme that pays farmers to turn marginal farmland into grasslands in 2024.
That means there is less land for pheasants to live on now than there was in 1995, when more than 2 million acres were put into the CRP and more than 1.4 million roosters were killed by shooters. There have been 100 years of pheasant shooting in Iowa, and this year is better than some.
More squirrel and rabbits are being caught.
The government also gave numbers for other small game in 2024. There were 27,500 quail killed by shooters, which is 2,700 less than in 2023. In 2024, about 77,000 rabbits were killed, which is 13% more than in 2023. The number of squirrels killed by shooters also went up in 2024. More than 124,300 were killed, which is 32% more than in 2023.
Like the other types of bird hunts, the number of mourning doves killed was slightly lower than in 2023, with about 143,000 doves being killed.
In August, the DNR will drive at dawn on thousands of miles of dirt roads to count female pheasants, also known as hens, as they move their chicks out of the dew to dry off. The department can use these numbers to get an idea of the number of pheasants before the 2025 season, which starts Oct. 18 for youth shooters.
In a statement, Bogenschutz said, “Overall, we had a really good fall. We’re looking forward to this year’s August roadside survey to see where the bird numbers are ahead of the 2025 season.”
The results of the roadside poll are usually made public in September, but early signs suggest that the “fourth least snowy” winter in 138 years might be good for pheasant populations.
In June, the department said that early nesting had been seen in different parts of the state. This generally means that there will be more pheasant chicks.
When paired with early nesting, Bogenschutz said that better weather predictions could lead to higher pheasant populations, which would make hunting easier in 2025.
To honour the 100th season of the sport in 2025, the DNR and Iowa Pheasants Forever made shooters a “hard card” hunting and fishing licence with a pheasant print.
