As the weather gets colder and the fields of corn and soybeans are stripped bare, the change usually signifies one thing for students in the Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited clubs at Iowa State: the arrival of hunting season.

However, there is more to both organizations than just hunting. 

Both clubs are in full swing and can often be found on club hunts, cleaning up parks and continuing conservation practices. For those in the Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited clubs, it’s not just about what they take out of the fields and marshes, but what they put back into them.

When Alison Fenske arrived on campus last year, she knew that she had to get involved in Pheasants Forever. A South Dakota native, Fenske’s father started a Pheasants Forever chapter in her hometown, and she served on the National Youth Leadership Council for the organization for six years.

Now, the sophomore is the president of the Pheasants Forever chapter at Iowa State. While Fenske hails from a state where pheasant hunting is a way of life, the organization’s emphasis at Iowa State has much broader implications.

“We promote habitat improvement,” said Fenske. “Although the majority of our members are hunters, we don’t stand by that necessarily- we are a habitat organization more than anything.”

The Pheasants Forever club at Iowa State was started in 1997 and since then has functioned primarily as an outlet to promote conservation in the surrounding community.

“Last year we gave $7,000 to Story County Conservation for a land acquisition that they were working on,” Fenske said.

In the years since the club was established, nearly $70,000 has been given toward habitat improvement. The club raises money by hosting a banquet annually, which is open to both club members and members of the community.

The banquet typically has several different auctions, raffles and games, and all proceeds go to the Pheasants Forever national organization. The club also does cleanup for local parks, having recently adopted the Jim Ketelsen Greenwing Marsh, located just west of Ames.

Those in the Pheasants Forever Club are not alone in their work to clean, maintain and protect the nature preserves and parks in Iowa. 

The Ducks Unlimited Club at Iowa State also works to impact the wildlife in Iowa. The club works in several parks in Story County, picking up trash and wasted shells that dot the parks and line the rivers.

They also construct duck boxes, artificial nests that encourage the habitation of waterfowl. They also collaborate with private landowners to help their land grow back into flourishing preserves.

“We have this one landowner every year, she has really nice marshland with a couple ponds in it and we go and set new wood duck boxes up and we will clean them out in the spring so they are fresh and ready to be used for the next year,” Travis Hursh, president of Ducks Unlimited, said.

However, the landowner strictly forbids hunting on her land, the importance of which is not lost on Hursh.

“We have to have places like that,” he said.

However, there are challenges that face both clubs. Raising money can be difficult, as can attracting more members to tackle bigger projects.

Currently Pheasants Forever only has about half of the members Ducks Unlimited does, which sits at 30 Iowa State members.

However, their most important challenge is getting landowners and farmers to realize the importance of conservation. Both the National Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever organizations work with the local governments and farmers to buy or set aside land for conservation.

However, that can be difficult in the heavy agricultural-based environment of Iowa, said Trevor Peterson, a Ducks Unlimited Club member.

“A lot of times that land is more profitable, in terms of agricultural ground, for raising crops and livestock,” Peterson said. “So they have to try to convince those people… to leave it the way it is and why it is better that way in terms of using it for agricultural uses and short term uses rather than long-term,” he said.

Both the Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever clubs go on club hunts when the season gets underway and for many, is the highlight of being involved in the organization. While some are involved in the clubs just for the conservation aspect and do not hunt, Hursh sees it as a way to enjoy all the work that went in to creating a proper environment for the wildlife.

“I really like the conservation part of it as well as the hunting part, but obviously you can’t have successful hunts without conservation,” he said. “Especially in Iowa, bringing back the marshlands is a huge part of conservation for waterfowl. I really like that aspect of it and just going on hunts and bringing new people into duck hunting and waterfowl hunting in general is a really good experience for me”