doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com NY State Closing Last Phez Farm

Just saw this in the online NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/nyregion/16pheasant.html?hp

As someone who lived awhile in central NY, I naturally never found released birds the equal of wild. But some adapted quickly and were game enough. Aside from pay-to-shoot preserves, that's been it for pheasants in NY state for many years. Too bad, especially considering that license fees reportedly covered the cost. If more cash was needed, they could certainly have introduced a pheasant stamp, as have other states.

Not sure how they do it in NY but in Ohio no General Fund money goes to the Division of Wildlife and no Dow goes into the General Fund. All the DoW money is from license sales, fines, etc. Because of the States budget problems all agencies were ordered to trim their budgets by X% including DoW. My local Game Warden said the money would be saved by doing less stocking and buying less land. The money saved will just go into some type of savings account until the Gov gives the OK to spend it.

Here in Pa., at one time in the area where I live now, was probably the pheasant capital east of the Mississippi, back in the 70's mid 80's. Stockings were done when the birds were 5-6 weeks of age on lands that farmers didn't post. Many survived as this area only had a month season of males only and 2 a day. In the spring going by plowed fields you could see them with hens, and hear them crowing.
That was then, now it is like an endangered species to see one. Too many foxes, coyotes, hawks and racoons. The state doesn't release the young ones any more, and now in this section you are allowed to shoot hens and the season runs to Feb.7, 2009. Well if you as a hunter don't release any it doesn't make any difference if the season was open all year long.
It seems this state caters to the big game crowd, and I'm not one of them. Turkeys have taken over, and the only way I will hunt them is with a bow, if I do.
So, I'm kind of bitter in that this state has let this program go the way of most other eastern states. They say lack of habitat, bull, there is still plenty of cover, they have to address the predator situation and re-introduce wild pheasants from wild pheasant states. They are trying to do this in mid-state counties that supposidly have cover, but the area is not a pheasant area and never was. From what I read many years ago is that pheasants have to have soil that has limestone in it.

Please be advised that PA was never the "pheasant capital east of the Mississippi" except for people who never traveled beyond the borders of the state. However, PA is the "flyer" capital of the USA, but them's pigeons. Introduced pheasants never took on the east coast, even though George Washington was importing them before he had wooden teeth.

The pheasants we have in America were imported by Judge Owen Denny to Oregon in the 1880s, took, multiplied, and spread east, naturally or by stocking. They were particularly successful in the dry states like ND & SD because they could tolerate 50 below and dry, but not 40 above and wet. Illinois has historically been a productive state for wild pheasants, and, to my knowledge, the state has never had a stocking program in my lifetime (since 1940). As a kid in the 1950s I could stalk wild pheasants with my bow and "flu-flu" arrow within the city limits on the north side of Chicago. One prosperous day, my friend and I (both age 14) got up 178 birds in one field at Touhy and Central ave's. My first shotgun kill (1956) was with my Stevens/Savage Mod.24 .22/.410 O/U out behind my dad's warehouse in Franklin Park IL. When I started driving in 1957, I could go out to what is now part of Ohara International Airport and shoot wild pheasants, or on a farm on Shoe Factory road near Elgin. All these venues are now built up and paved over. This is called "lack of habitat."

But lack of habitat close in to a major city shouldn't affect the situation where I am now, on the IL/WI state line due south of Madison WI (about 110 miles NW of Chicago). What I have observed in my 35 years of living "where the deer and antelope play" is that the pheasant populations rise and fall depending on weather. As I type this I can close my eyes and visualize the 25 to 30 pheasants that once grazed my corn just outside my window on a December day just like this (6 degrees at noon, thin snow cover) about 6 winters ago...and then came spring, a wet early spring dampened the over-winter survivors and weakened (or killed) a percentage; the early spring germinated the good seeds and rotted the others, minimizing a food source before the bugs began to flourish...a double whammy! The survivors nested and we had several big rains; a large percentage of the first hatch failed and the survivors started a second nesting, which produced late-commer chicks that were, on the average, not going to survive the winter. The cocks shot that fall were mottled about the plumage at the head and not quite mature and robust.

Suffice it to say that the year following we didn't hear much squawking at dawn and dusk during the summer and fall, and hunting season was tough, numbers were down...and this is all FACT. As to OPINION(S), everybody has one or many, freely given, and worth what paid. Yes, we have coyotes and hawks, but living among them I have not seen evidence of depredation. We have turkeys, so many that they can spoil an evening's bow hunt for deer as they clatter to their roosts in my woods; my neighbor to the west has a "herd" of turkeys, I have counted over 50 and estimate as many as 75, and they are there in the field every day when I go to town to ship books (thanks to our Homeland Security, an author cannot put a boxed 4-lb book in his rural mail box with postage for pick-up, but it has to be hand carried to the PO and personally inspected by the postmaster). Anyway...

Pheasant populations have gone up and down over my 35 years of on site observation, but I don't recall a down cycle lasting so long (5 years and counting). As to pheasant cover and winter food sources I do not detect any changes, except with all the CRP it is probably for the better. The coyotes and feral cats aren't going to get any of that which isn't there, and the hawks come and go. But tings ain't what they used ta was. I have a pheasant heaven: 100 acres of 180 bu. corn stubble and 100 acres of bean stubble, with enough dropped grain to feed an army; there's 83 acres of CRP cover and trashy internal tree rows and several woods...and all my neighbors' properties are much the same. This is historically "pheasant heaven," but no pheasants! This may be a fluke, or it may be something as subtle and stealthy as "BT" corn or Roundup-Ready beans where the new-fangled production of the crops interferes with the production of pheasants...but not turkeys...or maybe the super-abundance of turkeys are driving out the pheasants (Canada geese are super-abundant, but ducks scarce, go figure?). I just don't know. But here's what I do:

This year I released 30 cock pheasants and shot 9 (plus one quail; we have always had one covey of quail); my neighbor releases hen pheasants, but doesn't hunt; so we shall see...yet I'm not seeing any today in that corn patch north of the house. ParkerDog is not finding any evidence of depredation; the presumed surviving 21 are either laying low, or have vaporized. Investigation continues.

Meanwhile, Pheasants Forever fiddles while the pheasant populations crash and burn. These guys have their drunken bash and raise money for two mis-directed projects:

(1) The local chapter proudly announced a donation of hard-raised cash to the Forest Preserve Taxing District, not for the propagation of pheasants, but for a program to bus inner-city kids to the Severson Dells Forest Preserve to enjoy a day in the country. Talk about losing focus!

(2) A portion of the local chapter's funds raised to forward the interests of pheasants goes to the national office where it pays lobbyists to go to Washington D. C. to "bite the hand that feeds." By and large the PF members are city folk who started out by raising $$$ (al la DU) to convince their country cousins to set aside pheasant cover, plant rows of winter feed, etc. Some chapters arranged with farmers to raise and release pheasants with various long-term results, mostly depending on location and climate. But then they over-played their hand: Instead of working with farmers the started to work against them in congress and with the regulators. Here's how...

Until about 10 years ago I would get a threatening letter the end of June from the USDA telling me to comply with state and local noxious weed laws under penalty of losing my CRP rent and government program entitlements. This meant spot mowing (or spraying) Canada thistle before it went to seed about July 4th, which every good farmer did as a matter of opportunity after crops were in and when the weeds reared their ugly heads, weather taken into account.

But then PF got the regs changed by convincing the powers that be that all the stupid farmers (upon whom they depend on to hunt) were doing all kinds of "recreational mowing," destroying pheasant nests on the CRP ground that they as taxpayers were supporting...and then I got the nasty letter in June telling me that if I cut my noxious weeds before August 1st the government would come down on me, cancel my CRP rents, make me pay back what ever they had ever paid and tie me on the economic railroad track--an exact 180 degree reversal of policy. The problem, of course, is that the noxious weeds head out and scatter their seeds before August 1st. What to do?

Well, some farmers went on as before and spot mowed as needed when needed to comply with state law. But there are groups of the proverbial "little old ladies in tennis shoes" who devote their lives to objecting to roadside mowing by the state, counties, and townships, because they believe wild animals ought to be encouraged to live in close proximity to traffic. After being frustrated in their efforts against the various governments, they turned their attentions to enforcing the new CRP regs, using the Freedom of Information Act, to get names and locations, etc. and blowing the whistle on hapless farmers caught between federal regs and state laws. Thank you Pheasants Forever...Oh! yes...

There is now a relief provision. I can now go out and scout for weeds in late June (not on the tractor with mower) but in the truck. I can produce a map and mowing plan and drive 30 miles to my local gov. Farm Service office and file it, asking for permission to mow the selected areas. This petition must be heard by the county committee (assuming they meet and have a quorum), and I suppose they can send out someone to investigate...etc. If and when they approve my mowing request/plan and time and weather permitting, I may be able to mow the Canada thistle, but likely not. Thanks again Pheasants Forever!

And now you see why Pheasants Forever is giving their money to the Forest Preserve Taxing District instead of raising pheasants for release and/or establishing cover and food plots with the cooperation of farmers. Every time I see a patch of Canada thistle in my neighborhood, I think of PF throwing a monkey wrench in the ordinary scheme of things...and don't you think this hasn't affected pheasant hunting hereabouts. Pheasants Forever has truly bit the hands that feed. The symbiotic relationship has been diminished. If I were a local pheasant hunter contemplating joining an organization devoted to busing inner-city kids to the Forest Preserve for a day of non-hunting, I think my money would be better spent with PETA. As Pogo was wont to say, "We have found the enemy and he is us>" EDM

We currently have a put-n-take pheasant program. At one time it was done entirely with state raised birds. But it now is done mostly with purchased birds. The put-n-take program is run on state owned land. It is a good thing, in that a lot of young, blue collar folks get to spend time in the field chasing birds. Most do not own dogs.
There was an attempt here to stop the put-n-take program, but that was stopped by some intense lobbying during regional hearings.

For a few years at least, about 2000-2005 I know the state biologists were stocking pheasant and quail, but that was mostly downstate.

Pete

"Please be advised that PA was never the "pheasant capital east of the Mississippi" except for people who never traveled beyond the borders of the state."

Ed, I don't make this stuff up like some of you writers do.
At one time back in the 70's I believe, there was a list of the top ten states that had 1 million, thats 6 zeros, of pheasants harvested, and Pa. was one of the top ten.
Maybe you could tell me another state east of the Mississippi that had greater pheasant population. I don't think so.

So until you get your facts straight, I wouldn't be ridiculing someone

If EDM had hunted SW PA in the 70s he'd have known. Hell, the southern tier of NYS had wild birds back then too.

And like PA, hunting = deer in NYS. Before declaring the closing of the Ithaca game farm here a loss, I'd like to know the cost/bird that we were paying. I bet the farmers and preserves do it better/cheaper.

It is not ridicule to point out that bold unsupported statements--such as, "At one time back in the 1970s I believe, there was a list...&c."--are just that, bold unsupported statements, which, in this case, go against the more obvious demographics, climate and lay of the land in western Ohio, Indiana, and especially Illinois.

Notice that PA was in the original post "The pheasant capital east of the Mississippi..." and now is just one of the "Top Ten." Methinks JDW has adjusted his data. Looking at a map of the USA east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line (likely pheasant territory), and excluding Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont (unlikely pheasant territory), Pennsylvania being in the "Top Ten" is hardly a distinction.

Wisconsin and Michigan have huntable numbers in the southern extremes, but are mostly ruffed grouse venues. Anywhere on the densely populated east coast (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts), the game has been shot out since Colonial times, and imported pheasants never took hold. My kids live in Virginia farm country, and there is no pheasant hunting that I know of (other than put-and-take), and West Virginia doesn't seem likely. This leaves Upstate NY, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, which I believe rank in this order (unless NY exceeds PA).

According to my Atlas, The Keystone State has 44,820 square miles, which at 640 acres to the sq. mi. (44,820 x 640) that's 28.685 million acres or (using your 1,000,000 pheasants with "6 zeros") that's almost 0.035 pheasants per each one-acre parcel, or one bird for every 28.6 acres. That's one powerful bunch of (wild?) pheasants harvested in PA. And when we allow for carry-over populations, road-kill, winter-kill, the 50% hens not shot (assuming they were wild), I'd say that a 50% harvest of roosters after a 50% natural attrition would compute to 4,000,000 roosters on and before opening day, plus another 4,000,000 hens = 8,000,000 pheasants all told; that's about one pheasant for every 3.58 acres of Pennsylvania. Take away the extensive urban areas and vast mountain ranges not suitable for pheasants, and PA must have been heaven on earth for bird hunters in the 1970s when you believe your data originated. Strange that bird hunters would travel to Illinois, Iowa and the Dakotas back then.

Meanwhile, Illinois is 55,593 square miles (24% larger than PA) of mostly level farm land, no mountains, and historically has been ideal for pheasants. I don't recall unspecified publications of the 1970s, and would never shore up my statements with such thin provenance. On the other hand, I also don't remember any of my friends from PA bragging up the pheasant hunting, nor have my travels (east and west, north and south) throughout PA, several times a year, ever led me to believe that it was likely a pheasant friendly territory.

Are you confusing the ringneck of China and Mongolia with the Ruffed Grouse that is sometimes anachronistically misnomered as "pheasant" and/or "partridge" in your neck of the woods?

By the way, you can tell when "...a writer [does or] doesn't make this stuff up like some of you writers do," by looking for buzz words like: "At one time back in the 1970s I believe..." Pretty strong statement for one who bases his opinion on "I believe." Also notice the shift from "pheasant capital" to "one of the top ten," when it's hard to fairly characterize ten states as being pheasant-hunting territory east of the Mississippi.

Meanwhile, I believe otherwise, which is hardly ridicule, but just a difference of opinion. If we were talking deer, I could go back and search the kill/registrations for years harking back to 1955 in Illinois, but free range pheasants are shot and that's the end of the story; no one but pay-to-play game farms would keep records. Which begs the question of how anyone could possibly know how many wild pheasants were harvested in PA in the 1970s. Being in the top ten of five pheasant friendly venues is hardly a distinction: Pennsylvania, the "Pheasant Capital East of the Mississippi?": I don't think so. EDM

Ed, I didn't even read your whole post because of all the jib jab, BUT I GUESS THAT YOU DIDN'T READ MINE. I SAID THAT PENNSYLVANIA WAS IN THE TOP TEN IN PHEASANT HARVEST. If you are having trouble with this, that means out of the 48 contingent states, Pennsylvania was back then # 3. To explain it better to you, that means that out of the 48 states, Pa ranked 3rd in pheasant harvest. Do I need to say it again.
As far as your quote about land area of Illinois, who cares how much flat land you have, most of the pheasants were in the eastern to southern part of Pa, not that there weren't some in the other western counties, but not like where I stated.
I guess you never heard of surveys.
Until you can prove me wrong, which you can't, stick to Parkers.
I'm not a writer and not as well read, supposidly like you, but I state facts, so prove me wrong.

JDW: Simply read your own original post that I took issue with. You prove yourself wrong. As an aside to my rather long post on various pheasant hunting items, I corrected your wrong original statement, which follows verbatim:

JDW posted: "Here in PA, at one time in the area where I live now, WAS PROBABLY THE PHEASANT CAPITAL EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI, back in the mid-70s and 80s."

I said that PA was never the "pheasant capital" east of the Mississippi, or anywhere else.

JDW responded that EDM's taking issue with his erroneous and problematical statement (a statement prefaced by "probably") was "ridicule." (JDW should learn the difference between being corrected when making an over-broad statement prefaced by "probably," and ridicule. EDM may correct but never ridicules, although precise correction often leaves no place to squirm.)

JDW went on to say: "ED, I don't make this stuff up like some of you writers do." Thus it is made personal, as if persons skilled at writing non-fiction must be novelists in disguise.

JDW continued by shifting gears and equivocating--changing his original statement--as if anyone couldn't refresh one's own memory by simply scrolling up about 5 or 6 recent posts. Thus spake JDW:

"At a time back in the mid-1970s I believe, there was a list of the top ten...and PA was one of the top ten."

EDM agreed that "PA was one of the top ten" of the five or seven states where pheasants are found in numbers east of the Mississippi. Thus JDW's exaggeration was modified and made more plausable by his friend and editor EDM...however...

JDW couldn't let a sleeping dog lie: Said he, "...not being a writer and not as well read, supposedly like [EDM]..." But this is no excuse for not being able to read the plain unambiguous words that JDW himself posted (which started this much-adoo-about nuttin').

In summary, there is a quantum difference between PA being THE PHEASANT CAPITAL as originally stated and ONE OF THE TOP TEN (of 5 or 7) that is now JDW's claim. Having run this around the post the few people who care about such things can probably agree that without Pennsylvania we wouldn't have a Keystone State, and if they had named it Transylvania as once suggested, Count Dracula would really be confused--you know, Mongolian pheasants versus Hungarian partridges. Further EDM sayeth naught.