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Post by mannsbestfriend on Dec 23, 2007 0:19:26 GMT -4
PF and PGC did a wild pheasant release in my area. Supposedly the birds are doing really well. The birds were released on land with great habitat.
Just goes to show even if you release wild birds with survival instinct they still need the habitat to survive. On Sun Jan 6, @ 1pm PF will be doing a pheasant flushing survey at one of the release sites in Turbotville. I am going to try and make it to see the results. They are also having a pheasant flush on Jan 13 @ 1pm in the Greenwood Valley.
I hope the wild bird introduction is successful. The stocked birds are just to "stupid" even with good habitat to survive. They just don't have that survival instinct. Of course even with wild birds the habitat has to be there, and like you all mentioned before, the game commission isn't helping much.
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Post by netboy on May 8, 2008 23:55:56 GMT -4
The pgc pheasant plan for 2008-2017 will be posted this month. I'm curious to see what it is all about.
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Post by littleriver on Oct 8, 2008 17:02:12 GMT -4
NO, it will not matter.
I am not from PA but South Dakota. I can tell you for a fact shutting down the season for any amount of time will do absolutely nothing to help in producing more wild birds to your state. As a matter of fact it could hinder your numbers.
I don't know if you are anything like South Dakota but come December here at the lodge we are looking to harvest as many roosters out of the numbers as physically possible.
If you have a hard winter all you are going to do by not taking the roosters is kill off your brood hens.
A rooster will take care of 12+ hens in the spring so there really is no reason to not harvest the birds.
What happens in the winter is if there is a lot of snow the birds need to dig down to get to the ground and feed. What they do is dig a body sized hole. The Roosters will sit back and wait for the hens to get their holes dug before they push the hen out of it's hole to feed. All that happens is the hens end up not getting enough nutrition and basically die of exposure because they can't produce enough body heat do to lack of food.
Therefore a select harvest or no harvest for any number of years is really not going to make any difference.
Of course the main factor is habitat. Even here in the land of the Ringneck you are going to see South Dakota pheasant population numbers drop like a lead balloon in the next few years if the state doesn't get it's head out of it's rear end and give the farmers a descent land payment to put their property back into CRP(Conservation Reserve Program) 90% or more came out in the last two years because of the price of corn and wheat. The farmers loose their butt so why leave the land in the CRP program.
I would think it is only going to take the state two or three years of loosing tons of revenue before they put the program back to a price where they can get farmers to sign back up.
By that time the state will have lost tons of income, by state I am talking about the businesseses and will continue to effect it for several more years down the road until the numbers are up again and people can get back in the habit of coming here.
I have been in the hunting industry most of my life in the state and I can tell you everything is dictated by habit.
The only people this is going to help are the straight up pheasant preserves. Most of those places have nothing for wild birds anyway.
For us most of our birds are wild so it is a huge concern. Yes all of our habitat stayed in place but our numbers on the place are directly effected by what are neighbors do within a three or four mile radius.
I hope you guys get the numbers going in your state but without the nesting habitat in place their is absolutely nothing that will turn your bird numbers around.
In South Dakota right now we have an incredible number of birds. More then I can remember but not the most in history like the state is trying to advertise right now. Not even close.
I have friends all over the state that are in the same business as I am and the consensus is the same. Yes there are a lot of birds but no it is nothing like the 40's and 50's. My uncles and dad used to tell me about being able to shoot six roosters and a couple hens legally and being able to do it by simply road hunting for a mile or two. Everyone from that age group tells the same stories.
The reason there were so many birds is because the state was packed with what they called Soil Bank which is similar to CRP.
Good luck guys. I hope you get it going. Just a little food for thought to tell your state legislatures.
South Dakota brings in over 200 MILLION dollars in the first few weeks of pheasant season from our NON RESIDENT pheasant hunters. That is more then the rest of our tourism dollars for the state for the entire year. I would think it would be to a few other states benefit to get these bird numbers up.
Right now South Dakota has more Non Resident Pheasant Hunters alone the the combined Resident hunters for all species combined. That is big time income for the state.
Good hunting all
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Post by cole4train on Jan 16, 2009 12:09:13 GMT -4
hawks, fox, coyote, and especially CATS til their all dead there wont be any good bird hunting besides stocking
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Post by yihunt on Jan 17, 2009 11:48:11 GMT -4
IMO --better habitat and less predators would make a big improvement
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Post by mannsbestfriend on Feb 5, 2009 19:18:50 GMT -4
Pheasants forever is trying to bring back a wild bird population in PA. They have been trap/transfer wild birds from Montanna and putting them in different locations in PA. I am not sure of all stocking locations, but I am sure Turbotville area is one. I took my one GSP to a flushing survey that PF held about 2 weeks ago in the Torbotville area. There were probably 40 or so people there, some with dogs some without. I believe the fields my group flushed had 11 birds up. From the report some fields had as few as 4 some as many as 35. I believe the previous year they flushed 109 birds and flushed a little over 200 birds this year. Wild birds can and will survive and reproduce if they have the habitat. These areas are closed to hunting for obvious reasons, but it was something to see wild birds in Pa.
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