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The Pheasant Controversy

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mike rossi

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Pheasant Controversy is Growing

As awareness about the negative impacts of invasive species is increasing, anti-hunters are using this legitimate issue to invalidate conservation efforts as well as stocking of game birds that are not native, yet not deemed a deleterious invasive species. Far from invasive, their populations are actually contracting like the native non game they share habitat niches with. That is why the criticized conservation efforts are stepped up. And the same conservation projects that help ring-necked pheasant, gray partridge, and chukar partridge, also help other grassland or early successional species, a few examples being: bluebirds, song sparrows, field sparrows, goldfinches, red-winged black birds, common yellow throat, eastern meadowlark, grasshopper sparrow, bobolink, savannah sparrow, and Henslow’s sparrow.

First let’s discuss conservation. In NY the Wild Pheasant Focus Area; which is slightly smaller than Pennsylvania’s Wild Pheasant Recovery Area; consists of 150,000 acres and spans 13 counties. For reference New York City is 195,000 acres.

Not only do a variety of species benefit from the 150,000 acres of somewhat contiguous habitat of the Wild Pheasant Focus Area; but the DEC also maintains early successional habitat on state wildlife management areas elsewhere in the state, including over 120 sites used for the state pheasant stocking program.

Maintenance of habitat diversity is not restricted to pheasant release sites, however pheasant hunting provides both funding and political support for many projects and it is arguable that without pheasant hunters the state would have less early successional habitat. Keep in mind the word ‘maintenance’ is operant. To maintain early successional habitat it must be disked, mowed, or burned every three to four years. It is actually desirable to mow every year in the late summer, generally after wildlife have reared their young.  Not only does this facilitate hunters and their dogs, but by removing the browning cool season grasses it stimulates warm season grasses and bee-loving flowers.

Maintenance is not free and though critics of hunting continue to claim that conservation revenues generated by hunting are insignificant, the fact is that they are vital to conservation funding. The vast pool of knowledge about wildlife and habitat we have would never have been obtained in the first place if it was not for hunter’s dollars, a sadly overlooked fact.

Note: It would be impossible for any alien species not to compete at all with native species. Almost no impact has been suggested for chukar and gray partridge. Pheasant roosters have been known to harass Prairie Chickens when on their leks and hen pheasants known to lay their eggs in Prairie Chicken nests. This will be an issue anti-hunters will grand-stand on, because recently (April 2014) the Lesser Prairie Chicken became a federally listed species. However, the issue with Prairie Chickens has always been habitat. Conversion of native grasslands (prairie) into range land and crop land did not have as much effect on the ring-necked pheasant or the prairie chicken’s cousin; the sharp-tailed grouse.  Other factors have entered recently as well. In 2013 the amount of land enrolled in the conservation reserve program shrunk from the size of the state of NY to the size of the state of Delaware. A lot of this had to do with the demand for corn for ethanol production, but also uncertainty with the Farm Bill status. At the same time another major landscape change occurred with the expansion of the natural gas and oil industry which fragmented the little remaining native grassland prairie chickens require. The moral of the story is that ring-necked pheasants may have impacted prairie chickens, but other factors surfaced with much bigger impacts.

Also refer to the following links for information about the Federal Injurious Species List and the Lacey Act:

http://www.fws.gov/injuriouswildlife/

http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/ans/current_listed_iw.pdf

http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/ans/pdf_files/Current_Listed_IW.pdf

 

 

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