The population for pheasants \u2014 the large ground-dwelling game birds famous for their brilliant, colorful feathers and their long, pointed tails \u2014 has seen an uptick over the past year. <\/p>\n
The Minnesota DNR\u2019s 2026 Minnesota August Roadside Survey found the pheasant population is up 20% this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis 20%, it is significant,\u201d said senior wildlife research biologist for the DNR, Stephen Woodley. \u201cThat’s mostly attributed to this mild winter we had, and then a little bit drier, warmer spring conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woodley explained a milder winter allows for more ground-dwelling birds like pheasants and greater partridges. \u201cThey don’t have that deep snowpack to forage in and find food,\u201d Woodley said. \u201cBut climate’s only one of the drivers in their populations; we also have habitat and predators as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The increase in the pheasant population could also give hunters a boost in this year\u2019s pheasant hunting season in Minnesota, which runs statewide from October 10, 2026, through January 3, 2027. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou should probably be seeing a few more birds, or flushing a few more birds on your hunts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pheasants are not alone in a growing population \u2014 the state has also seen an increase in eastern cottontail rabbits and the whitetail deer. <\/p>\n
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The population for pheasants \u2014 the large ground-dwelling game birds famous for their brilliant, colorful feathers and their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-848867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}