Pheasant numbers were down 20 percent in a key annual population survey, South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department officials announced Wednesday.
The 2016 roadside brood survey conducted from July 25 to Aug. 15 found a statewide pheasant per mile index of about 3 birds per mile down from the 2015 number of 3.83. Still, the 2016 survey’s PPM index was twice as high as the 2013 survey and a little higher than the 2014 index of 2.77 pheasants per mile
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South Dakota landowners were able to enroll a grand total of 101 new acres of land into the Conservation Reserve Program this year
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He said South Dakota could lose as much as 200,000 more CRP acres over the next two years. Right now, there are about 954,000 acres in CRP in South Dakota, Runia said, a far cry from 2007’s total, he said.
“We’re on pace to have half the CRP acres that we did in 2007,” Runia said.
There was a span of about 15 years when CRP exceeded 1.4 million acres and yet pheasants per mile remained below six. Then we had about eight years when the pheasants per mile reached six or higher, even as CRP acres were declining.
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