Pheasant Fest to Roost Here in 2011 By David Hendee WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Published Monday, January 4, 2010The blaze-orangepeople are coming to Omaha again.
Pheasants Forever's National Pheasant Fest and Convention will return to the city early next year.
The gathering of thousands of upland hunters, sport dog breeders and handlers, gun and ammunition vendors, landowners and wildlife conservationists — for whom wearing hunter orange is a fashion statement — was last in Omaha in 2005.
The three-day event will set up camp Jan. 28 through 30, 2011, at the Qwest Center Omaha. Organizers expect attendance of more than 30,000, most of them Nebraskans and Iowans.
Pheasants Forever's 2005 Omaha fest was the first big convention at the Qwest Center, with a gate count of more than 24,000 people.
“Pheasant Fest is an all-family, all-day event that's more than just another sports show,” said Bob St. Pierre, a spokesman for Pheasants Forever, based in St. Paul, Minn. “For our 130,000 members across the nation, it's a vacation destination, even in a January in Minnesota or Nebraska.”
A bird dog parade, a youth village and mock hunt, wildlife artists, wood carvers, taxidermy displays, guides and outfitters, hunting apparel, seminar speakers and landowner habitat consultations are popular features.
Pheasants Forever was created in 1982 by hunters and others to restore and preserve wildlife habitat and ensure the future of ring-necked pheasants and other wildlife.
The convention gives Nebraska a chance to showcase its hunting opportunities, said Dana Markel, director of the Greater Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“Hunting is a tourism market that we're trying to grow statewide,” she said.“It's a big market, but it's been a market share that we have slowly been losing to other states. We want to bring it back.”
There were 118,000 residents and non-residents 16 and older who hunted in Nebraska in 2006, according to the most recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey. Eighty-six percent of those hunters were residents. Hunters spent $231 million on hunting-related expenses in Nebraska.
St. Pierre said Pheasant Fest is returning to Omaha to highlight Nebraska's significant role in preserving and establishing pheasant habitat, boost initiatives to improve bird hunting and help stem declines in the state's number of pheasant hunters.
Only Minnesota and Iowa have more Pheasants Forever members than does Nebraska. The chapters across Nebraska have worked on more than 2.8 million acres of habitat conservation projects.
But challenges continue to crop up, St. Pierre said.
Federal contracts that pay Nebraska farmers to plant grass on more than 84 million acres of marginal farmland will expire during the next five years. The land is important pheasant habitat.
St. Pierre said the loss of that staggering amount of pheasant habitat would be devastating to bird populations and hunting.
Also, there has been a 26 percent decline in the number of resident pheasant hunters in Nebraska from 1998 to 2008, according to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. The state sold 80,984 resident licenses in 2008.
“Nebraska isn't booming in pheasant numbers, but it's a pretty darn good place when compared to places like Minnesota, Michigan or Wisconsin,” St. Pierre said. “Nebraska easily is one of the nation's top five pheasant-producing states. To see a decline in resident hunters is alarming.”
Roger Dixon, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority, which oversees the Qwest Center Omaha, said bagging Pheasant Fest is a coup for the city.
“When Pheasants Forever decided to take their Pheasant Fest on the road andout of their home state of Minnesota for the very first time, we were thrilled that they chose Qwest Center Omaha as their destination,” he said. “The event was terrific for Omaha, and we are very glad to welcome them back.”
Markel said it's difficult to estimate Pheasant Fest's economic impact on Omaha. Attendees at the 2005 meeting occupied 1,532 hotel rooms, she said.
St. Pierre estimated the convention's economic impact at $2 million to $5 million, depending on the location.
This year's Pheasant Fest is Feb. 26 through 28 in Des Moines.
Pheasants Forever's National Pheasant Fest and Convention returns to Omaha in January 2011. More than 30,000 people will pass through the gates to see a bird dog parade, a youth village and mock hunt, wildlife artists, wood carvers, taxidermy displays, seminar speakers, habitat consultations and more.
