Months of persistent drought in 2012, a cold, wet spring in 2013 and a reduction in habitat have impacted pheasant brood counts, according to a report released last week by the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department.
Day County is no stranger to the epidemic sweeping through the Midwest, known as Rural Flight. The county has consistently lost population for the past 90 years. But according to a 2011 estimate, the area is looking at its first increase in population since 1920. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 population estimates Webster and Day County have increased half a percent since the 2010 national census.
Few houses are being built or in the rural areas of the state where depopulation is happening, according to Sid Goss of the S.D. School of Mines.
By Michael McCurry, South Dakota State Demographer We’re all time travelers, traveling at the same speed-one hour per hour. We age at the same rate, and then look with surprise at an old person staring back from the mirror.…