Guthrie County Conservation Director Joe Hanner told the Board of Supervisors yesterday that he believes the local population of pheasants to be on the rise, though still  far away from the peak populations of decades ago. DNR records show that in the 1970’s hunters in Iowa harvested over 1.5 million pheasants a year, that number reached an all-time low of 109,000 birds in 2011. Data from the Department of Natural Resources and Pheasants Forever shows that recent road-side counts of the bird show the highest totals since 2008, providing further evidence of a population rebound. Hanner ended his report to the board by telling the story of a hunter who reached his bag limit of three pheasants at Panora’s Bays Branch Wildlife Area in just 15 or 20 minutes.