Pheasant Release Helps, But Habitat Crucial Number Of Birds Taken By Hunters Plummets Since 1980S

The law directing the state to release pheasants in Eastern Washington was sponsored by a hunter, for hunters. It’s paid for by hunters.

But even hunters say that releasing pen-raised pheasants is a short-term fix for the long-term problem of disappearing habitat.

Only 2 to 5 percent of the ring-necked birds are expected to survive predators or winter, said Dave Ware, acting game director for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Releasing pen-reared birds may damage existing habitat near the release site.

The law is the result of legislators who all but ignored slow but significant efforts to restore habitat in favor of immediate results. Now wildlife officials, the prison system and hunters are trying to make the best of it.

Last year, a dry summer combined with the federal Conservation Reserve Program to produce the biggest wild pheasant hatch since the early 1980s.

But overall, the number of pheasants has dropped since 1981. Much of their disappearance, like their existence, can be traced to farming. The birds, first introduced to the United States from China in the 1770s, thrived in the cover provided by the region’s wild and farmlands.

But improved irrigation meant less standing water, fewer cattails and less cover. Improved pesticides killed pests that chicks relied on for survival. Weed control stripped fields of noxious weeds - and cover for winter. Then eight years of drought led to record low numbers. The number of pheasants taken by hunters dropped from 500,000 in 1981 to 70,000 in 1995.

As a boy in West Seattle 40 years ago, Sen. Bob Oke, R-Port Orchard, remembered his dad waking him at 4 a.m. to go east to hunt pheasants. “Hunting was a really important part of my life. It was a bonding between my dad and me and the outdoors,” he said.

By 1997, Oke was so frustrated with not seeing birds that he launched a bill to restore pheasant habitat and resume releasing pen-reared birds. He and his wife, Judy, cooked and served pheasant to the entire state Senate to plead their case. The bill sailed out of the Senate and ran smack into opposition.

“Let’s just say I forgot to feed the House,” Oke said.

The bill was sidetracked by Eastern Washington legislators who saw the habitat expansion plan as a land grab by Fish and Wildlife. The bill passed only after lawmakers demanded that 80 percent of a $10 surcharge collected from Eastern Washington pheasant hunters go to releasing birds, a practice most states began abandoning by the 1980s. The rest would go to habitat and would be used to encourage hunting opportunities for juveniles.

A more flexible program would have allowed the state to better respond to the needs each year, depending on weather, hatches and whether individual farmers needed help placing land in reserve for wildlife.

Instead, most of the $320,000 collected from 32,000 pheasant hunters in Eastern Washington last year will support raising and releasing birds.

Still, Ware said he supports any program that raises awareness and concern for habitat, especially among hunters, who are at the forefront of conservation.