"Habitat work is not able to return the abundance of pheasants we once had."

Due to the release program, hunters "have a great chance at finding pheasants in the public-land grasslands of southern Michigan"

Michigan now has "more birds and more locations for a longer season"
                                                                                                       
                                                                Michigan DNR press release
                   

In 1944, Michigan’s pheasant harvest topped 1.4 million birds. An average of over 1 million birds were harvested each year from 1937-1959. Small game hunters during that same time numbered between 500,000 and 700,000. 

 

Sadly, over the past seven decades, wild pheasant numbers have declined in the state.

This change was predictable, as Michigan’s agricultural landscape looks nothing like it did in the 1940s and 50s.

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The DNR hopes "they have brought back at least a bit of what it felt like to experience ring-necked pheasant hunting, back in (the) days when the sport reigned king in southern Michigan.

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2023 is a great year to try out the pheasant release program if you haven’t already!

 

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