BOSTON, MA -- Today, The Fund for Animals (Fund), The HSUS,
Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(MSPCA), and several Cape Cod residents filed suit in U.S.
District Court in Boston challenging the National Park
Service’s (NPS) decision to release hundreds of non-native
pheasants each year within the ecologically fragile Cape Cod
National Seashore for recreational sport-shooting purposes --
even though the NPS’s own policies explicitly prohibit the
intentional release of non-native and exotic wildlife.
Each fall, the NPS and Massachusetts Division of Fisheries
and Wildlife release hundreds of captive-bred pheasants on the
Seashore during a six-week hunting season. The pheasants,
native to Asia, are raised on intensive bird farms, where
farmers put “blinders” on the birds and cut off parts of their
beaks. The tame birds are completely unprepared for survival in
the wild, and many are shot by hunters within hours of being
released. Those who survive are killed by predators or vehicle
collisions, or succumb to starvation.
Cape Cod National Seashore is home to numerous ecologically
important native plant and animal species, including a number
of species listed as endangered or threatened by the U.S. or
Massachusetts, which are adversely affected by hunters and
their dogs, many of whom are abandoned on the Seashore and left
to trample sensitive plants and consume native birds and other
wildlife until local animal protection officials can pick them
up. The NPS’s cursory study of the pheasant stocking program in
1996 failed to include a no-stocking alternative and failed to
consider the impact of the program on the unique ecological
characteristics and resources of the Seashore, public safety,
and threatened and endangered species.
“The pheasant stocking program is ecologically reckless,
patently inhumane, and inconsistent with the NPS’s own
policies,” said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of
The Fund for Animals. “The NPS is exterminating black rats on
Anacapa Island and evicting wild burros from the Mojave because
they are not native, but is purposely introducing exotic
species for sport hunters to use as targets. There is nothing
remotely sporting about shooting tame birds raised in
captivity. The NPS may as well offer hunters the chance to
shoot fish in a barrel.”
“The NPS allows the stocking of captive-raised pheasants for
the purpose of making helpless birds into placid targets for
hunters,” said Dr. John Grandy, senior vice president of the
Wildlife Division of HSUS. “This callous action violates both
moral and environmental sensibility. The HSUS has presented
evidence that the birds’ beaks are partially amputated, that
the birds are raised in crowded conditions with a hundred times
the birds of a normal flock, and that they are fed medicated
feed that contains antibiotics -- yet this program continues.
National parks are not places where special interests should be
allowed to engage in activities that can threaten the
ecological communities and policies the parks are sworn to
protect. The NPS’s commitment to protecting living plant and
animal communities should not be subordinated to -- and made
meaningless by -- the idea of recreational pleasure.”
Added Kara L. Holmquist, director of legislative affairs for
MSPCA, “We joined this lawsuit because all other means of
ending the stocking program have been exhausted. The MSPCA has
testified before the National Seashore Advisory Commission and
our members have expressed their opposition to, and concern
about, introducing a non-native species on the Seashore.
Unfortunately, this practice continues and our many members and
supporters on Cape Cod and throughout the state are adversely
affected.” A copy of the complaint filed today is available on
The Fund's Web site or by calling 301-585-2591.
