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Pheasant Stocking Programs Get a Lump of Coal

December 9, 2008


	©Ali Taylor/Stock.xchng
	Fewer pheasants will be used for live target practice this year.

The current fiscal crisis doesn't generate much good news, so let's celebrate the trend of cutting pheasant stocking programs as a common-sense solution to budget shortfalls.

In 19 states, wildlife agencies spend money to "stock" open spaces with tame, pen-reared pheasants. It's an abhorrent ritual in which these exotic animals, originally from China, are dumped in a strange landscape as living targets.

But now that decisionmakers are looking under the sofa cushions for every dime, pheasant stocking might finally reveal itself to be the cruel and wasteful use of taxpayer resources that it is.

Game Over

A few years ago, the Pennsylvania Game Commission cut its pheasant stocking program in half to address agency funding gaps. The Illinois governor vetoed funding for the state's stocking program for the current fiscal year.

Just this week, New York announced the closing of its state-owned pheasant game farm.


©New Hampshire Animal Rights League
In pheasant stocking, birds are trucked in by the hundreds at taxpayer expense to satisfy unsporting appetites.

Total all of those cuts, and that's 260,000 birds per year who won't experience an assembly-line life composed of incubators, grain feeders and pens.

These 260,000 animals won't have their beaks cut off, or have plastic "blinders" shoved through their noses to keep them from pecking at the other stressed birds crammed in with them.

Neither will they endure a bumpy ride on the back of a truck, only to see the sky for a few minutes before looking down to rows of waiting shotguns.

Even if in better economic times state agencies brush off monetary concerns, shooting birds with all the survival skills of parakeets remains barbaric and senseless. In fact, in 2007 the National Park Service announced plans to phase out stocking on the Service's only stocking property, the Cape Cod National Seashore, because pheasant stocking is at odds with its exotic wildlife management policies.

"I'd Rather Shoot Clays"

Only the unsporting few who like shooting tame birds (and extremists at the National Rifle Association) spend time trying to defend pheasant stocking. As one hunter said, "I'd rather shoot clays than line up and shoot pheasants like that." After all, studies consistently show that these pen-reared pheasants are so domesticated that they can't tell the difference between a 12-guage and a garden hose.

And if shooters don't kill the hapless birds during the first few weeks, predators snatch them up, cars hit them, harsh weather cuts them down, or starvation sets in.

After these cuts, other stocking states should follow suit. In every state the public has a vote in how to manage natural resources. How long will the public stand for government agencies trying to make a priority of something as indefensible as pheasant stocking?

Pheasant stocking isn't hunting. It's killing.

In the best of times, pheasant stocking doesn't rate as a sport. In these perilous economic days, it stands out as even more absurd.

What You Can Do

Find out if your state stocks pheasants. If it doesn't, say thanks for its sensible policy. If your state does stock pheasants, urge it to stop.

Pheasant Stocking

Flying in the Face of Ethics

States with Pheasant Stocking Programs

The "Collateral Damages" of Pheasant Stocking

Time to Clip the Wings of Wasteful Pheasant Stocking Programs