SD 1.5 million pheasant harvest possible for 2025, GFP says

 

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The head of South Dakota’s Wildlife Division made a bold statement on Friday.

Tom Kirschenmann predicted that hunters would harvest more pheasants in South Dakota this season than they did last year.

“I would not be surprised to see 1.5 million birds harvested this year,” Kirschenmann told state Game, Fish and Parks Commission members during their meeting in Rapid City.

 

He added, “It’s hard to drive anywhere in South Dakota right now and not see upland birds, whether it’s pheasant or grouse.”

Hunters took an estimated 1.3 million wild pheasants and an estimated 99,000 sharptailed grouse and prairie chickens in South Dakota during 2024.

The 2025 grouse hunting season opens on Saturday, September 20.

Pheasant hunting opens gradually. First comes a youth-only season September 27 through October 5, open on public and private land. Next is a residents-only season, limited to public lands, that runs October 11-13. Then comes the full season opener on Saturday, October 18, running through January 31, 2026.

Alex Solem is the upland game biologist for the Wildlife Division that’s part of the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department. He told the commission on Friday that the estimated harvest of 1.3 million pheasants during the 2024 season was based on surveys of 15,000 residents and 15,000 nonresidents and doesn’t include the approximately 400,000 pen-raised birds that hunters took at shooting preserves.

Read the full KELO article

 

 

SD 2025 will be a very good year for pheasant hunting according to state GFP

PIERRE, SD (KELO.com) — This year’s pheasant season is expected to be loud and wild.  State wildlife officials say hunters could harvest up to one and a half million birds this fall, topping last year’s 1.3-million mark.  Strong habitat and good weather conditions helped.  Regular season opener is set for October 18th.

Read the full KELO article

South Dakota adds 30,000 acres to hunting land

Joshua Haiar - Pheasants Forever has enrolled a new landowner in its Public Access to Habitat (PATH) program that will open nearly 30,000 new acres of private land to public hunting and recreation in northwestern South Dakota.

Pheasants Forever is a nonprofit conservation group that works to improve habitat and expand public access to hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts. The group’s Ziebach County project is the largest single enrollment of the PATH initiative, which launched in South Dakota and Nebraska in 2023. 

With this addition, the program has opened 62,581 acres of privately owned land to public access across South Dakota through 59 contracts in 31 counties.

Acres enrolled in South Dakota’s Walk-In Area program can be found on Game, Fish and Parks’ Public Hunting Atlas.

Read the full Aberdeen News article