Syracuse.com - DEC behind new strain of pheasant that will be released for this fall's hunting season

[HuntingNY-News]

It's a Mongolian/Chinese strain, adn they're a little bit bigger than the pure Chinese strain that the DEC has been raising and releasing across the state since the 1940s. Watch video

Dick Blume/The Post-StandardMongolian/Chinese Pheasants, which is a new strain of bird that's being stocked across the state this year, are at the Jamesville Correctional Facility's pheasant-raising facility.

Central New York pheasant hunters will be pursuing a new strain of pheasant this fall.

The bird — a cross between the traditional Chinese pheasant and a new Mongolian strain — will soon be stocked by state workers and volunteers in fields across the state. In many cases, the birds have been put in fields earlier by sportsmen’s clubs and other volunteers who secured young chicks from the DEC and raised the birds themselves this spring and summer.

In any case, the Mongolian/Chinese strain seems to be just a little bigger than the traditional Chinese strain.

Although it may be too early to tell, they also seem “a little bit spookier ... they tend to move away from you more,” according to Bob Rathman, manager at the DEC’s pheasant farm in Dryden (just off the Cornell University campus) where the birds were bred.

The reason for the new strain?

“We’ve been raising the Chinese strain since 1940s — and maybe even earlier,” Rathman said. “Last year we started noticing genetic problems because of the years of inbreeding. We decided we wanted to get some new blood and began looking around.”

Reynolds said the DEC bought some rooster chicks from a private pheasant farm in Pennsylvania.

“They had these Mongolians that looked very similar to the Chinese birds. We then crossed the roosters with our own Chinese-strain hens,” he said.

So far, Rathman said, it appears the Mongolian roosters did their job and “eliminated our genetic problems.”

Dick Blume/The Post-StandardThere's currently some 3,000 adult birds at the Jamesville pheasant-rearing facility waiting to be released for the upcoming hunting season.

The Reynolds pheasant farm is the DEC’s sole breeding spot for the birds. In addition to the Mongolian/Chinese strain, the farm raises a smaller bird, the Manchurian pheasant, which has a complete white ring around its neck. The pure Chinese and new hybrids have only a partial white ring.

“Manchurians also tend to be wilder, spookier and faster flying,” Rathman said. “We release those in the second half of the fall season.”

Rathman said this year Reynolds will be releasing more than 37,000 adult pheasants, with about 60 percent of those being the new hybrid mix and the rest being Manchurians.

The DEC has also distributed an additional 49,000 hybrid chicks to sportsmen’s groups to raise. Those birds can only be stocked on lands open to the public for hunting, he said.

Locally, the majority of birds released in Onondaga County fields are raised from day-old chicks from Reynolds at a pheasant farm on the grounds of the Jamesville Correctional Facility.

The local pheasant rearing complex is maintained by volunteers from the Onondaga County Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, with an assist from the jail’s inmates who help feed the birds. There are 3,000 Mongolian/Chinese adult birds there right now waiting to be released.

“They’re definitely feistier and larger than what we’ve had in the past,” said Stephen Wowelko, president of the federation.

Although Central New Yorkers grew up seeing pheasants in local fields and woods, the bird is not native to this state — or even this country. They’re from Asia.

The birds, commonly called “ring-necked pheasants” were introduced into this country in 1881 when Judge Owen Nickerson Denny, the U.S. consul to China, shipped 30 Chinese ring-necks (26 survived the trip) to his home in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

Dick Blume/The Post-StandardThe males are brightly colored; the female birds are not.

“Eleven years later, Oregon opened a 75-day season and hunters bagged 50,000 pheasants,” according to the Pheasants Forever website. The birds have since been released in 40 of the 50 states.

“Male ring-necks feature a white ring around their neck and body plumage of gold, brown, green, purple and white. Females are much less showy with drab brown feathers,” the website said.

The bird was established in New York following a release in 1903 on the Wadsworth estate near Geneseo. The birds spread fast, particularly with the help of continuous stocking efforts.

“Populations peaked in the late 1960s and the early 1970s,” according to the DEC website, but have declined ever since, largely due to habitat loss. Another factor is an increase in predators such as hawks and eagles (thanks to restrictions on DDT and other pesticides) and less trapping, which has resulted in more coyotes and foxes.

Regardless, the DEC’s annual stocking program, bolstered by a broad network of volunteers, has kept pheasant hunting popular to this day.

Carmen Davoli, president of the Central New York Chapter of Pheasants Forever, said he loves to hunt the bird. He said he’s itching to get out this fall with Simon, his 9-month-old weimaraner.

“It’s the pointing, the finding of the bird — retrieving. Talk to any pheasant hunter. It’s about him and his dog,” he said.

Join the hunt

The fall pheasant hunting season in the northern and eastern areas of the state opens Oct. 1. Most of Central New York and the western area begins Oct. 20. The daily bag limit is two. and the seasonal limit is 30. A small-game hunting license is required. For more, see the DEC website or hunting guide.

Finding pheasants

The DEC’s website offers a list of locations where pheasants are stocked.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog