Flying in the Face of Ethics

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	Pheasant stocking violates hunters' own ethics.

Many believe pheasant stocking is inherently unethical and inconsistent with sustainable state wildlife management.

State wildlife agencies have become factory farmers of pheasants—rearing hundreds of thousands of non-native birds and churning them out to hunters for easy targets. They consistently favor the interests of a handful of hunters wishing to kill exotic animals over programs protecting native wildlife. Pheasant stocking is simply no "service" a government agency should offer.

Now is the time to question the role pheasant stocking plays in a humane culture—or even a hunting culture. Jim Posewitz, a former Montana wildlife agency biologist, founded Orion: The Hunters Institute to create and promote ethics in hunting. In his book Beyond Fair Chase, he defines fair chase as a balance that "allows hunters to occasionally succeed while animals generally avoid being taken" (Posewitz 1994)—a definition that pheasant stocking clearly violates by supplying birds stripped of natural escape behaviors and without meaningful chance of survival.

Related Links

Pheasant Stocking

Rearing Pheasants

Releasing Pheasants

The "Collateral Damages" of Pheasant Stocking

Tower Shoots

States with Pheasant Stocking Programs

Pheasant Preserves: Flushing Fair Chase Out

Pheasant Stocking Report 2007