RE: Wild Pheasants in PENN
 

I've hunted that area and I also have seen hawks perched in trees overlooking the fields take birds, BUT the birds were stocked, pen raised birds. I've aso seen and shot grouse in that area of the Gap. Funny how grouse can survive and pen raised birds are hawk food.

I tend to think that wild pheasants would have a much better rate of survival than dumb pen raised birds.

RE: Wild Pheasants in PENN
 

Now that is something I can agree with.

You might well see wild pheasants being introduced into some of the state’s best habitat areas in the future. It pretty much depends on the success or failure of the pilot areas of the Pike Run and Montour projects. They have been having a hard time getting enough wild birds from out west so far though to get the reintroduction program as far advanced as was hoped.

Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County

RE: Wild Pheasants in PENN
 

See Dick, we do have some common ground. :)
I think that we all wish the Wild Pheasant Program success. It would be a real boost to the hunting community.

What the program needs is greater exposure to Pennsylvanians. That just might generate some much needed funds for the project. We need to be talking more about Pheasants and arguing less about Deer. I sure wish some of our outdoor writers would take a greater interest in writing articles about this matter.

RE: Wild Pheasants in PENN
 

Also, add to the list of things, that caused a decline in pheasant populations, are the use of pesticides and herbicides and the intrduction of stocked birds with their diseases into the wild populations.

RE: Wild Pheasants in PENN
 

No matter what the varied reasons for the decline of pheasants in Pennsylvania may have been, it's a tragedy that we have waited so very long to dosomething about it. Pennsylvania has over 275K acres enrolled in CRP/CREP, more than in the 1960's, yet, the agency plays a small role in the current reintroduction program. The lions share of the effort and financingfalls on the shoulders of the Tri-County Chapter of Pheasants Forever, the Calif. Univ. of Pa, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service and privat contributers.

It was in the very late 70's that the agency finally realized that pen raised turkeys were not propergating and switched to capturing wild turkeys and reinstating them into areas lackingand/or devoid of the birds. In just a very few short years the state wasexperiencing a dramatic renewal of wild birds. We even have wild turkeys in Philadelphia.

One has to wonder why these same tactics were not applied to pheasants in all these years? Did those agency biologists who succeeded with turkeys suddenly leave the agency with all that they had learned, or was/is the agency deliberately turning it's back on this princely bird and the many thousands of hunters who enjoyed hunting them?