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The ring-necked pheasants’ unlikely journey to becoming an Iowa icon

Iowa’s pheasants can be traced back to a wind storm in 1901 that damaged William Benton’s private game farm in Cedar Falls, liberating around 2,000 pheasants. (File photo courtesy of Pheasants Forever)

It was still an hour before the 2024 pheasant season would open but the birds were there and they were ready. Cackles and crowing were coming from all across the Kossuth County prairie as hunters whispered with anticipation – today would be one for the memories was the consensus.
Judging by the parking lots at the public hunting areas across north Iowa, that opinion was a popular one.

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