Hunting Pen-Reared Pheasants

In most of the United States, what’s called ‘pheasant management’ is really hunter management.

by Ted Williams

There are some bizarre traditions in American wildlife management, one of which is stocking non-native, pen-raised pheasants to ensure easy kills for birds ill-equipped to survive on their own. Stocking occurs at least once weekly throughout the hunting season.

Money squandered on raising and stocking non-native, domestic pheasants would be far better spent on habitat work for native wildlife including such game birds as doves, quail, grouse, rails, woodcock, sandhill cranes, wild turkeys, snipe, coots, gallinules, ducks, geese and brant.

The ring-necked pheasant is native to Asia and the northern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains along the southeast fringe of Europe. In 1857, it was introduced to North America, where it quickly naturalized. Today, pheasants are pursued by bird hunters in 40 states. They’re second only to wild turkeys in popularity.

In South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota, pheasant populations are sustained by natural reproduction. But in the other states, naturalized populations have waned or more often flickered out. The limiting factor is loss of diverse habitats such as grasslands, hedgerows, and family farms.

In an attempt to stick a square peg in a round hole, most states stock domestic, pen-reared pheasants. My state of Massachusetts, for example, stocks 40,000 a year. The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) used to operate its own game farms. These days, it purchases pheasants from private game farms. Most are released on 40 “wildlife management areas.” Prices vary, but one adult game-farm pheasant can sell for $15.

I mention Massachusetts only because I worked for MassWildlife in the 1970s. Even then, we knew that wildlife management didn’t happen on wildlife management areas. We called them “idiot acres,” a term coined by my boss, neighbor and friend Colton “Rocky” Bridges, the agency’s director.

In Massachusetts, as in most states, pheasants are stocked a few hours before hunters step out of their vehicles. Hunters frequently outnumber pheasants. The lucky birds get shot before dark. Most are eventually killed by avian and mammalian predators, starve or freeze to death.

Many intact domestic pheasants decline to fly because they’ve never had to. Some you can grab on the ground. I have done this on numerous occasions in woods near wildlife management areas. It’s not impossible to fill your two-bird daily limit without firing a shot. Domestic pheasants do about as well in the wild as the chickens my daughter accidentally released and whose feathers swiftly carpeted her dirt driveway for 100 yards.

Pheasants reared in game farms must have plastic blinders wired to their upper mandibles so they don’t defeather their cellmates. I know of two instances in which stocking crews neglected to remove these blinders, and the pheasants stumbled around like Mr. Magoo, eventually winding up on front lawns where, to the pique of homeowners, they were gunned down mob-style from car windows.

When my son Scott, now a deer biologist, was in college, he helped raise pheasants at MassWildlife’s Ayer Game Farm. His application was nearly rejected because in an op-ed for the Worcester Telegram, I’d disparaged the pheasant program, suggesting that pheasant waste could be eliminated and hunter success improved if, instead of bringing the pheasants to the hunters, the hunters were brought to the pheasants and allowed to hunt inside the cages.

But Scott needed a summer job, and the Ayer Game Farm needed an employee who stood 6-feet 8-inches because when domestic pheasants flutter up, they frequently get their plastic blinders stuck high on the wire enclosure. When this happened, Scott’s co-workers would yell “Hanger!” and he’d run over, reach up and free the bird. Once, while he was retrieving a particularly high hanger, he got his belt buckle stuck in the wire and found himself suspended. “Hanger! Hanger!” shouted his co-workers.

State resource agencies are mandated to preserve and restore all wildlife, not just game species, and to serve the public, not just sportsmen. As an information and education officer for MassWildlife, I learned that because my colleagues and I were fed and clothed by license buyers, “information and education” meant telling sportsmen what they wanted to hear rather than what they needed to know. Instead of serving their long-term best interests, we indulged their short-term appetites, such as festooning the landscape with alien, domestic birds that don’t reproduce. Our curricula resembled that of a school at which students sign teachers’ paychecks. Today, at least with state pheasant programs, nothing has changed.

Again, MassWildlife is not atypical. In fact, it’s among the nation’s more enlightened resource agencies. But reallocating the vast sums of money for its pheasant program to habitat protection and restoration is politically impossible.

So popular is hunting domestic pheasants that even the National Park Service was obliged to let MassWildlife stock them on the Cape Cod National Seashore. As in many National Park units, hunting is guaranteed under the Seashore’s founding legislation, but not disrupting native ecosystems by superimposing alien species on them.

“I’ve long been concerned about the practice of pheasant stocking at Cape Cod National Seashore,” writes Wayne Pacelle, president and founder of Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy. “That concern is grounded on the obvious problems associated with the practice—introduction of an exotic species for target practice; the inability of these pen-reared animals to survive on their own, effectively creating an animal abandonment circumstance; and the special unsuitability of this practice on any unit of the National Park Service, and the deviation from wildlife protection values at the core of the agency’s mission.”

In 2002, native wildlife advocates, Pacelle included, sued the Seashore for failure to follow the National Environmental Policy Act and failure to comply with National Park Service Management Policies regarding introduction of exotic species. In 2003, the U.S. District Court ordered the Seashore to review its hunting program using the alternatives-analysis and public participation required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The outcome was a 2007 agreement to phase out pheasant stocking over 14 to 17 years.

Game-farm Pheasant Hunting is Inhumane

Almost without exception, defenders of domestic pheasant stocking blame “anti-hunters” for widespread and growing opposition. This, for example, from Ultimatepheasanthunting.com: “Anti-hunting organizations believe pheasant hunting is susceptible to their attacks… Anti-hunting organizations claim that state wildlife agencies are conducting pheasant programs that are not ecologically or financially sound.”

That “claim” is spot-on. Anti-hunting organizations do claim, accurately enough, that “conducting pheasant programs [is] not ecologically or financially sound.” But both the claim and the “attacks” issue mostly from fair-chase hunters — me, for example.

I’m an avid, lifelong hunter. I agree with animal rights and animal wellness groups that game-farm pheasant hunting is “inhumane,” but not the actual shooting, which is more humane than, say, ruffed grouse hunting. Domestic pheasants are such inept fliers that the vast majority of hunter kills are quick and clean. What’s inhumane is releasing tame critters that haven’t learned to fend for themselves in the wild.

Hunting pundits proclaim that every man in his lifetime is entitled to one good woman, one good bird dog, and one good plumber. For me, only the plumber came late (2024). For 14 years in the 1970s and ’80s, Ruggles, my second of five Brittany spaniels, was widely and rightly regarded as the best pointing bird dog in New England. When he died, I quit hunting ruffed grouse because the new dogs couldn’t always find and quickly kill wounded ones. Since then, I’ve hunted only woodcock, because you either miss cleanly or kill cleanly. When my dog points domestic pheasants, I do shoot them, but never on wildlife management areas and only as a means of euthanasia, acquisition of meat, and avoiding dirty looks from my dog.

No group on the face of the planet is less anti-hunting than the 130,000-member, 750-chapter Pheasants Forever, founded in 1982 by pheasant hunters. Its mission is to conserve naturalized pheasants as well as native wildlife “through habitat improvements, public access, education, and conservation advocacy.” Its staff includes 175 wildlife biologists.

Herewith, Pheasants Forever FAQs:

1. Stocking of pen-raised birds is not an efficient means to increase wild bird populations, as shown by numerous studies over the past 25 years. Developing and enhancing habitat, on the other hand, has proven to help increase ring-necked numbers.

2. On average, only 60% will survive the initial week of release. After one month, roughly 25% will remain. Winter survival has been documented as high as 10% but seldom exceeds 5% of the released birds.

3. For the most part, hunting has little to do with poor survival. Predators take the real toll on pen-raised pheasants, accounting for more than 90% of all deaths. The reason being [that] pen-raised birds never had a chance to learn predator avoidance behavior. Starvation can also be a problem.

4. There often will be a few that make it, but studies have shown they are unable to maintain a population. This is why local stocking programs continue year after year. Ultimately, we must ask ourselves why there is a need to repeat stocking efforts on an annual basis if survival is as high as often claimed.

5. When pheasants were first transplanted (different than stocking) and introduced to the U.S., the landscape was far different from the one we have today. Farming techniques were primitive, field sizes smaller, and crops more diversified. These habitat conditions created a situation ideally suited for the introduction of a farmland species, such as the ring-necked pheasant.

6. Genetic dilution may be occurring. Even with minimal survival, the release of thousands of pen-raised birds over many years may be diminishing the “wildness” of the wild stock. Another concern is that, by releasing hundreds of birds in a given area, predators may start keying on pheasants. This may result in wild birds incurring higher predation. Finally, there is the potential of disease transmission from released birds to the wild flock.

7. During the past 50 years, a colossal amount of money has been spent on supplemental stocking programs by state and local governments, sportsmen’s groups, and private individuals. If these dollars would have been invested in habitat restoration, hundreds of species of wildlife in addition to pheasants would have benefited. Here’s the bottom line: When habitat conditions improve, wild pheasant populations will increase in response to that habitat.

The Kansas Dept. of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism files this report:

“Research has shown that pen-raised birds do not survive well (some studies suggest greater than 90 percent mortality within 30 days or less)… The only reasonable situation for releasing pen-reared birds is to release them right before a planned hunt, and the expense for a put-and-take program that would satisfy hunter demand across the state is astronomical and not fiscally feasible. Nor do we know the impact such a widespread release of pen-reared birds could have on our wild populations in terms of genetic change or spreading of disease… Releasing pen-reared birds today is like trying to put more gas in a full tank; it is just wasting valuable financial resources that could be spent more effectively. The best management practice we can do is to increase usable habitat. Upland game populations have an amazing ability to reproduce and expand given good climatic and habitat conditions.”

Stocking of pen-raised birds is not an efficient means to increase wild bird populations, as shown by numerous studies over the past 25 years. Developing and enhancing habitat, on the other hand, has proven to help increase ring-necked numbers. On average, only 60% will survive the initial week of release. After one month, roughly 25% will remain. Winter survival has been documented as high as 10% but seldom exceeds 5% of the released birds.

First-Person View of Shooting Pen-Reared Pheasants

I object to domestic pheasant programs less for what they do to pen-reared pheasants than what they do to the values of my fellow hunters.

To grasp the depths to which these values have descended, consider the thriving private business of “tower shoots.” Participants encircle the base of a tower and collectively blast away at domestic pheasants hand-flung by a “guide” atop the tower.

I participated in a tower shoot at Lido’s Game Farm in Taghkanic, New York, but only because I was working undercover for Audubon magazine.

“Don’t judge us by today,” declares the receptionist as I peel out three tens and a five which, along with my mailed $25 deposit check, entitles me to shoot. “Usually,” she tells me, “they throw two hundred birds for forty guns, but with the long weekend and all…well, only thirteen guys signed up.”

Inside the clubhouse, Lido removes his well-soaked Italian cigar, lays it on the table, and lectures us on safety and etiquette: “Don’t shoot no cranes,” he commands. (With cranes confined to the West and Midwest and no derricks within miles, I conclude that he must mean great blue herons.) “And don’t shoot no deer,” he continues. “Lotsa guys up here been spraying deer and cranes and beavers.”

Lido has had problems with George, who’s brought another group up from the Bronx. Later, I hear Lido whisper to Dave the guide: “If he don’t rotate, stop the hunt right then. If he pulls that shit again, I’m not letting him back here.” Still later, Lido says: “I gotta get down to the tower. We got some crazy guys today.”

At Station 18, I load my 12-gauge Ithaca pump shotgun and twist the poly choke to full. “Have fun fellas,” intones Lido. “Every five birds you rotate to your right. Don’t shoot the tower because some of you guys got deer slugs on you; you don’t think you do, but you do.”

Dave flings pheasants. Shotguns bark in chorus. Pheasants spew feathers like slashed pillows in a gale. One rooster orbits the entire perimeter, drawing appalling fire. I don’t see him go down, because I’m holding the Ithaca’s stock in front of my eyes. Spent pellets pepper my canvas jacket.

Four times Dave throws previously wounded birds that crash to the ground before anyone can touch off a round. (At another tower shoot, where I was only an observer, wounded birds dragged themselves back into their cages.)

Once someone shoots while Dave still holds the pheasant. “Hey, what you shooting at?” he screams. “Don’t never play games wid me!” He’s been “lucky,” he later informs me. He’s only had to excavate pellets from his flesh twice.

When the last bird is thrown, we open our actions and filter through the brush, searching for MIAs. I don’t pick up the one I find because it’s from a long-ago shoot and lacks meat. Of the 50 birds I saw hit, we retrieve 22.

Ted Williams is a lifelong bird hunter and former information and education officer for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. He writes exclusively about fish and wildlife.