Cheap Thrills ‘Hunting’ Dumb Pen-Raised Birds

Cory Quinn passed up a sure shot at a rooster pheasant last week.

The youngster was looking down the barrel of his shotgun at the bird when his father, Mark, asked what he was doing.

The kid said he was aiming at a pheasant.

“Don’t shoot it on the ground,” said Mark, a Washington Fish and Wildlife Department biologist.

“I’m not going to shoot him at all,” Cory said, as the pheasant stood there gawking. “I feel sorry for him.”

The Quinns and one of Cory’s friends were hunting near Ephrata where rooster pheasants are being released under a new program ordered by the Washington Legislature.

They shot six pen-raised roosters that day.

“Pen-raised pheasants are dumb to start with,” Mark said. “But some are dumber than others. I think we’re confirmed wild bird hunters, now.”

Dan Chadwick, who works at Sacred Heart Medical Center, also experienced the thrill of pen-raised birds.

He was sneaking ducks on the Snake River near Central Ferry recently when a huge bird lumbered out of the grass.

“I’ve never seen a pheasant that big,” said Chadwick, who felt the earth shake when the rooster tumbled to the ground. “I weighed it at home at 4 pounds, 6 ounces.”

The cock had been released from the first batch of pheasants trucked in from a bird farm near Hamilton, Mont.

“Those were what they call the meat birds they raise for people who want to buy pheasants to cook for dinner,” said Quinn, who has been coordinating the pheasant-release program in Central Washington.

Washington’s orders for pen-raised birds were late getting to private producers because the legislation authorizing the program was a surprise. The department has scrounged for birds in several states, taking lunkers and losers to get 12,500 roosters. The birds are being released at 24 sites in Eastern Washington.

So far, about 6,000 birds have been turned loose.

The last releases this season are scheduled for just before Thanksgiving at nine sites in the Ephrata Region and five near Yakima. Roosters also will be released at 10 sites in the Spokane Region, mostly on Corps of Engineers habitat areas along the Snake River.

Department regional offices have schedules for release dates and a list of sites.

“We printed them on sheets, and they go like hot cakes,” Quinn said.

Department trucks often are met by hunters waiting for the workers to open doors on the crates.

“What can we say?” Quinn said. “They paid their $10. We’re putting the birds out to be harvested. We know the birds won’t survive long. They might as well shoot them.”

But happiness can be elusive even at a pheasant-release site.

“Some people who go to the sites expect to get a bird,” he said. “They get really mad at us if they don’t.”

Thank Sen. Bob Oke, R-Gig Harbor, for reducing a hunting heritage to a joke.

In an August telephone survey, 69 percent of the upland bird hunters polled by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department said they favored releasing pen-raised birds.

What they meant is not clear.

Some sportsmen and sportsmen’s groups raise pheasants for release on private lands to provide shooting, but most of all to improve relations with farmers who permit hunting on their property.

This is an excellent use of pen-raised birds.

On a statewide basis, however, the program was a proven money-wasting failure before it was dropped 15 years ago. The cost to raise a pheasant runs $10-$15 a bird. Survival rates through the first winter are almost nil.

But the sportsmen’s survey offers hope that the hunting heritage hasn’t succumbed to the Me Generation.

Although 69 percent of the hunters surveyed favored pheasant releases, 90 percent favored pheasant habitat enhancement.

When asked to rank their priorities for pheasant management, habitat enhancement was on top of the hunters’ list. Next were hunter access and land acquisition. Releasing pheasants ranked fourth.

This sheds light on the inequity of Sen. Oke’s legislation, which requires 80 percent of the money raised by the Pheasant Enhancement Stamp to be spent on pen-raised birds.

The survey is a vote of confidence for Mark Grabsky and other department employees who are working full time to develop habitat that will provide wild pheasants for hunters long after the hawks and coyotes have feasted on the pen-raised birds.

Last week, Grabsky had to release pheasants along the Snake River because of the legislative mandate.

Today, he and other department habitat specialists are in Natural Resource Conservation Service offices throughout the region. They are helping farmers fill out paperwork for the year’s second enrollment in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, which will secure land for habitat and soil conservation.

Some hunters may have been deceived into thinking the most important date on the calendar is the next release of pen-raised pheasants.

Far more important is Friday, the last day for the region’s farmers to sign up for CRP.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review