WEST FARGO – Context matters when you are comparing numbers and statistics. After a stock market dip and rebound, for example, headlines might tout “the market is up 3%” without telling the whole story.

If the market fell 5% the previous week, a “gain on a loss is still a loss.” That provides a better understanding of the picture the numbers portray.

It’s similar with pheasants and wildlife, when we compare today’s numbers with historical data from the recent “good old days” of pheasant populations and hunting a decade and a half ago.

Last year, about 55,000 hunters harvested about 350,000 pheasants in North Dakota. In 2008, hunter numbers were almost twice as high, with 107,000 hunters bagging about 1 million pheasants.

Back then – believe it or not – southeastern North Dakota’s pheas

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