Syracuse.com - Inner-city Syracuse children help stock pheasants

[HuntingNY-News]

The event was part of a police program in which youngsters are exposed to hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities by officers and volunteers.

Ellen M. Blalock / The Post-StandardPolice detective Paulene Eggers helps Aâdarrius âAJâ Parks, 12, put a pheasant into a pen Monday at the Jamesville Correctional Facility pheasant farm. Luis Rivera, 10, is next in line to put a bird in the pen.Ed Pugliese, volunteer manager at the Jamesville Correctional Facility pheasant farm, stood in front of about a dozen youngsters, busily clipping off the plastic blinders from the bird’s beaks before they got loaded into crates.

About a dozen youngsters, all from inner-city Syracuse, stood in line before him, anxiously holding male and female birds. The blinders were put on months ago to prevent the birds from pecking each other.

“Hold their feet and cradle them like you’re supposed to, or they’ll flap you with their wings,” cautioned Renee Clarke, whose husband, Jim, a retired Syracuse Police officer, had organized the Columbus Day outing. The event was part of the Syracuse Police Department’s community policing strategy in which youngsters are exposed to hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities by officers and volunteers.

Ring-necked pheasants have been getting stocked on public land recently in preparation for this weekend’s pheasant hunting season opener in much of Central and Western New York. The season opened at sunrise Saturday.

Pheasants are not native to this country and were originally brought here from China. Today, a small number reproduce in the wild in small areas in the western part of this state. The vast majority are raised for stocking in fields and woodlands at the DEC-run, Reynolds Pheasant Farm near Ithaca, with assistance from sportsmen’s groups and others.

Monday morning at Jamesville, Shawnee Loneeagle, 11, said she liked pheasants because their feathers are “so soft.”

Her brother, Strongbow, 7, said he enjoyed catching the birds. “My grandfather has a gun and he shoots birds — and we cook’em,” he said proudly.

After 110 pheasants were captured and caged, they were driven to the Tioughnioga State Wildlife Management Area, near New Woodstock in Madison County. There, the birds and youngsters were transported by a tractor and several ATVs to several locations. At each spot, the cages were placed on the ground, opened and the birds flew out one after another.

“Bye-bye,” said one little girl, waving.

Afterward, the youngsters were taken to a barbecue at Onondaga County Judge Joseph Fahey’s home, which included rides on Fahey’s three mules.

Clarke said he took a second group of youngsters and adults out Tuesday evening to release 100 more birds in the same area.

“I hope people get out and enjoy hunting those birds,” he said.

For more on the community policing program, see northsidepolice.com.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog