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Pheasant propagation program sees changes

Commentary

The statewide pheasant season opened Sunday, and according to Pennsylvania Game Commission sources, hunters should find increased opportunities for this popular gamebirds.

I’ve often lamented the fact that we have lost a once impressive population of wild ring-necked pheasants here in Pennsylvania. Sadly, many hunters under the age of 40 never had the opportunity to hunt wild pheasants here and probably never will. To maintain a glimmer of hunting opportunity for pheasants here in Pennsylvania, the Game Commission has been stocking about 200,000 pheasants each year that are raised on the Game Commission’s game farms.

Raising all those birds is a costly venture. of course. Last year, the Game Commission’s pheasant program cost Pennsylvania hunters $4.3 million. Based on a total of 215,000 pheasants stocked, that comes out to $20 per bird. As a cost-cutting measure starting in 2017, the agency has decided to buy day-old chicks from private propagators rather than hatching chicks from breeder pheasants on the Game Commission game farms. This measure is estimated to save the Game Commission about $200,000 a year. Now, I doubt that anyone should be surprised that private business could produce day-old pheasant chicks cheaper than a government agency, but I think all hunters should be asking why they didn’t go this route years ago. And I would be willing to bet anyone a steak dinner that the Game Commission could purchase adult pheasants for stocking for less money than it will cost agency to raise the birds themselves.

Getting back to the increased opportunities I mentioned at the outset, 25,000 additional pheasants will be released throughout the state this year. These “extra” birds are pheasants that would be normally be retained on the game farms as breeder birds for next season. Now that the Game Commission is not hatching its own pheasant chicks, it no longer needs breeder pheasants and can release them for hunters this fall.

Robert C. Boyd, who oversees the Game Commission’s pheasant propagation program, said, “These extra birds are being stocked during the second, third and fourth in-season releases, and the winter release. So while releases ahead of the junior season and statewide opener will continue to provide the typical early-season action, those who keep hunting through the season also are bound to encounter increased flushes and sustained opportunity to harvest pheasants.”

About 75 percent of the pheasants released will be on state game lands and other public land that offer good pheasant-hunting habitat and hunter access. Private lands enrolled in the Game Commission’s Hunter Access Program will receive other 25 percent of the pheasants stocked. According to Game Commission statistics, about 100,000 hunters currently participate in pheasant hunting for a total of 400,000 hunter days afield, meaning the average pheasant hunter spends about four days pursuing pheasants each season.

Of course, in a perfect world, all the pheasants stocked in Pennsylvania are intended to end up in the game bag of a lucky hunter, but in the real world that isn’t always the case. In order to determine just how many of its stocked ringnecks are ultimately harvested by hunters, the Game Commission conducted a study last year. More than 5,500 pheasants with leg bands were released during the regular preseason and in-season stockings.

Overall, 2,073 of those banded pheasants were reported, and 49.1 percent of those were harvested by hunters. That number was pretty much in line with a previous study conducted back in 1998 when the hunter harvest rate for stocked pheasants during or just before the hunting seasons was about 50 percent. Another 43 banded pheasants were found dead. Of those birds, 24 died of unknown causes, 14 were killed on highways and five were killed by predators. Most of the banded pheasants recovered close to where they were released, but some of the road-killed birds were found as much as 10 miles from their release site. One pheasant released in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area made its way across the Delaware river and was found in New Jersey.

Some of the other statistics based on the study are also interesting. The harvest rate for male pheasants was 53.8 percent, while the harvest rate for females was 41.1 percent. The harvest rate for state game lands was 48.7 percent and 50.7 percent on other public properties, while the harvest rate on private properties enrolled in Hunter Access programs was just 37.3 percent. The harvest rate for birds released early for the Junior Hunt was 40.6 percent, and the harvest rate for pheasants stocked preseason was 46.7 percent. Harvest rates for the first three in-season stocking averaged 52.9 percent.

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