South Dakota Pheasant Outlook

The annual pheasant brood survey calculates “pheasants per mile” over 110 30-mile routes driven over a three week period in late July and early August. For details on how the brood route survey is conducted, clickHERE.
The 2009 statewide pheasant per mile index is down 26% from 2008 (8.56 to 6.32).
2009 will still have the fourth highest count in the past 45 years. South Dakota has harvested over 1 million pheasants each of the past 11 years, and close to 2 million the past four years. For a historical look at South Dakota pheasant statistics, clickHERE.
If you are interested in the full survey report, clickHERE.
To view the 10-year pheasant per mile index trends, broken down for each of the 13 areas of the state that are monitored, clickHERE.

Pheasants Per Mile (PPM) index values comparing 2009 to 2008 and 10-year averages.

Local Area	Routes	Pheasants per mile (PPM) 2009 2008 10-yr avg.			Difference of 2009 PPM with 2008 10-year avg.
Chamberlain	10	19.26	22.56	14.57	-15%^ns	32%^ns
Winner	8	11.43	10.61	6.64	8%^ns	72%^ns
Pierre	13	11.48	13.58	6.29	-15%^ns	83%*
Mobridge	8	8.54	12.29	5.10	-31%*	67%*
Aberdeen	14	5.75	8.84	6.15	-35%^*	-7%^ns
Huron	17	7.08	11.39	8.09	-38%^*	-12%*
Mitchell	16	6.17	7.61	7.03	-19%*	-12%^ns
Yankton	9	1.87	1.78	1.56	5%^ns	20%^ns
Sioux Falls	13	1.93	2.55	2.40	-24%^ns	-20%^*
Brookings	11	2.67	4.85	4.44	-45%*	-40%^*
Watertown	12	3.24	5.93	4.53	-45%*	-28%*
Sisseton	5	2.04	1.90	1.65	7%^ns	24%^ns
Western SD	5	3.84	1.96	2.35	96%^ns	63%^ns
STATEWIDE	109	6.32	8.56	5.58	-26%^*	13%^ns

^ns Results of Wilcoxon signed-rank test not significant (P > 0.10)

* Results of Wilcoxon signed-rank test significant (P < 0.10)

NOTE: Comparisons are valid only between years within each local area.