Local News
Top Upland Game Bird at One Time
By Douglas H. Domedion
Ring-necked Pheasant
Oct. 18 was the opening day of pheasant season in this area, but pheasant hunting today is not the type of hunt many of us older guys remember. We hunted a bird that was born wild and gave both the hunter and the dogs a good workout. His wild flush and cackle stopped the heart of many a pheasant hunter back then. The pheasant still does this, but it is not the bird it used to be, as they are mostly pen raised now and released just before hunting season, without the “wildness” they once possessed.
In the 1960s the Ring-necked Pheasant was the top game bird in New York State. Everyone went pheasant hunting and most enjoyed good shooting.
This Asian immigrant was introduced originally in 1892 but it was the 1903 release near Geneseo that really established this great game bird.
Starting in the 1970s this bird population declined rapidly. That left us with about 90 percent fewer birds then we had during those “good old days.” Habitat loss is considered the main reason for this loss. The disappearance of fallow grasslands for nesting and raising young had taken its toll.
Farmland in New York has declined from 68 percent of total state acres in 1920 to 24 percent in the early 1990s. What farming is done today consists of large tracts of land that do not contain cover and nesting area like grasslands or hedgerows.
Much of the land that has been abandoned as farmland has reverted back to forest-type habitat that has increased other species like deer and turkey but does not favor pheasants.
Predators such as hawks, great horned owls, foxes, raccoons, skunks and opossums have also been able to decrease the population because of the loss of the good cover for nesting and raising young.
The State uses propagated pheasants to supplement what wild population is left. At one time there were seven state game farms that raised pheasants, one of which was the White Game Farm in Basom. This farm was the last one to be closed and now only the Reynolds Game Farm near Ithaca remains.
The Reynolds Game Farm provides about 60,000 day-old chicks to cooperators, such as 4-H youths, to be raised until about 7 weeks old and then released. They also provide about 15,000 birds 7 to 10 weeks old to cooperators, such as sportsmen and landowners. The birds are put in holding pens but are released soon afterward. Food and water is provided in the pen and the birds are free to come and go, which helps condition them to the wild.
The game farm also raises about 25,000 to 30,000 adult pheasants annually that are distributed statewide on land open to the public prior to and during the hunting season.
The purpose of these different propagation programs is to provide hunting opportunities and not to restore the wild populations. These birds are not nearly as rugged as wild pheasants and few survive until spring to reproduce. It is strictly a “put and take” set up. Only the right habitat improvement could bring back the wild population.
The interest in hunting pheasants has dropped from 105,000 hunters in 1982-1983 to 38,000 in 1998-1999. In that same time span harvest of these birds has dropped from 193,000 to 91,000.
The pheasant season in this area is for cock birds only. It runs from Oct. 18 through Dec. 31. The daily bag limit is two per day. Release sites for some of these birds are the Darien Lake State Park and the Tonawanda and Oak Orchard WMA’s. Birds are released on Tuesdays and Fridays until Nov. 3 and no hunting or dog training is allowed on those days. The Tonawanda WMA will receive around 800 birds while the Oak Orchard WMA will get approximately 500 and Darien Lake State Park will get about 300 birds.
It is a shame we don’t see these birds like we used to, as they were not only a sporting bird but a very beautiful one at that. If you are lucky enough to see one, look closely and you will see an array of colors and patterns like no other bird.