Despite numerous accolades, the chapter wasn鈥檛 giving enough money to Pheasants Forever鈥檚 habitat mission, according to Jared Wiklund, communications director for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever.
While pheasant harvests have declined from a recent peak about 15 years ago, numbers in South Dakota and North Dakota had slight increases in the 2022 season.
Avid upland and waterfowl hunters, Vetter and her husband, Clyde 鈥� also a North Dakota native 鈥� live in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where they own and operate Sharp Shooter鈥檚 Kennel.
Bird feed along Minnesota roadways makes pheasants more vulnerable to predators, disease and traffic, while doing little to help. It鈥檚 rare to find starved pheasants; cold is the real menace.
As part of the event, the club this year purchased 450 pheasants 鈥� of which 350 were roosters 鈥� and released them at about a half-dozen sites in the Finley, N.D., area on the property of willing landowners.
Minnesota's farmlands have changed dramatically, and pheasants today are fewer. A good day afield might yield a hunter and his or her dog a two-rooster limit, and the state's ringneck tally when the season concludes might touch 275,000 birds, give or take.
Forty years ago the Minnesota founders of Pheasants Forever 鈥� from the metropolitan area and from Kandiyohi County 鈥� met on the shores of Eagle Lake north of Willmar and agreed to the local control model that the organization continues today. The surviving founders of that meeting returned to Eagle Lake to visit about the organization's start and how they made that critical decision.
