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I've been reading the back-and-forth about whether to have a pheasant stamp and all the wonderful things that will happen, and horribles that will be avoided, if and when PA gets a pheasant stamp.
I live and hunt in Maine, though I'm a native Pennsylvanian and grew up hunting in PA back when there were lots of wild pheasants all over. We have a pheasant stamp in Maine. I can tell you from our experience that the last thing you want in PA is to have one.
The long and the short of it is, as in most other things, m-o-n-e-y. Once the PGC can gauge exactly how much money pheasant hunting brings in, they will spend just that much and no more on it. Buying stamps tells them exactly how much.
My combined Maine resident fishing and hunting license costs $42 and the pheasant stamp another $17. The pheasant program is supported solely by the proceeds from the stamp. Last year's stamp sales buy this year's birds. For that $17, and the $17 of all the other hunters who buy one, we get:
1. One game biologist who spends [a lot] less than half his time on the pheasant program;
2. three stockings each year (2300 birds last year, total);
3. some small signs marking where the stocking locations are.
Most of the legwork is done by volunteers from a half-dozen rod-and-gun clubs in the southern part of the state (mine included). That includes sussing out landowners who'd be willing to open their land to hunting and allow pheasant stocking. One guy I know goes to Goodwill and buys old pie plates, gathers apples from old orchards (the price is right) and makes them into apple pies, which he then uses to bribe/sweet-talk landowners into opening their land. Seriously. As it is a lot of the cover is "suboptimal" at best - juniper thickets under a long-distance high tension line, swamps, and occasionally farm fields. We get some holdover birds, depending on how rough the winters are.
Almost all the stocking work is done by the guys from the rod and gun clubs. This involves meeting the truck from the hatchery and taking the crated birds in the volunteers' pickup trucks to the release sites, then turning them loose. The total load for each stocking is one F350 towing a large-ish landscaper's trailer loaded with crated birds, i.e., about 750 birds per load. The state stocked 2300 birds last year. http://www.maine.gov/ifw/hunting_trapping/hunting/pheasant.htm
You can suss out that the program is selling maybe 2000 or 2500 stamps, maybe 3000.
Maine buys its birds from a commercial hatchery/raising operation in another state. At one time, the birds were raised here by volunteers (not state employees), but getting volunteers from a gun club to turn into poultry farmers is a hard sell. It's hard enough to get them to come to a monthly meeting let alone feed and water and protect a couple thousand pheasants on a daily basis. They have other, paying jobs. It wound up being 5 or 6 guys doing all the work. A few years ago when the volunteers in charge lost heart after some mink got into the pens and raised all kinds of [censored], the state went to buying birds. The one year the state had to buy more birds after the flock tested positive for a mosquito-borne illness and had to be destroyed.
Sometimes they're good flyers (like last year) and sometimes not so much (like 4-5 years ago).
Most if not all fish and game departments are primarily judged on and evaluate their own success on the results of deer season and the strength of their deer herd. Pennsylvania is one. (The Dakotas are the biggest exception in my opinion.) Pheasants take a distant second, third or fourth (behind turkeys and other big game). As it is, right now the PA guys who buy a license so they can hunt deer on the first day and the Saturdays of the season are subsidizing everything else. If you go to a pheasant stamp you will quickly find out how many guys are willing to part with another $25. (Not many. Surprisingly few.) The Game Commission will, too, and they will quickly adjust their priorities. And you won't see hundreds of thousands of birds being stocked ever again, nor will you see much research time, effort or money spent on restoring the populations that used to exist.
You don't have to believe me, but what I've told you is true.
I live and hunt in Maine, though I'm a native Pennsylvanian and grew up hunting in PA back when there were lots of wild pheasants all over. We have a pheasant stamp in Maine. I can tell you from our experience that the last thing you want in PA is to have one.
The long and the short of it is, as in most other things, m-o-n-e-y. Once the PGC can gauge exactly how much money pheasant hunting brings in, they will spend just that much and no more on it. Buying stamps tells them exactly how much.
My combined Maine resident fishing and hunting license costs $42 and the pheasant stamp another $17. The pheasant program is supported solely by the proceeds from the stamp. Last year's stamp sales buy this year's birds. For that $17, and the $17 of all the other hunters who buy one, we get:
1. One game biologist who spends [a lot] less than half his time on the pheasant program;
2. three stockings each year (2300 birds last year, total);
3. some small signs marking where the stocking locations are.
Most of the legwork is done by volunteers from a half-dozen rod-and-gun clubs in the southern part of the state (mine included). That includes sussing out landowners who'd be willing to open their land to hunting and allow pheasant stocking. One guy I know goes to Goodwill and buys old pie plates, gathers apples from old orchards (the price is right) and makes them into apple pies, which he then uses to bribe/sweet-talk landowners into opening their land. Seriously. As it is a lot of the cover is "suboptimal" at best - juniper thickets under a long-distance high tension line, swamps, and occasionally farm fields. We get some holdover birds, depending on how rough the winters are.
Almost all the stocking work is done by the guys from the rod and gun clubs. This involves meeting the truck from the hatchery and taking the crated birds in the volunteers' pickup trucks to the release sites, then turning them loose. The total load for each stocking is one F350 towing a large-ish landscaper's trailer loaded with crated birds, i.e., about 750 birds per load. The state stocked 2300 birds last year. http://www.maine.gov/ifw/hunting_trapping/hunting/pheasant.htm
You can suss out that the program is selling maybe 2000 or 2500 stamps, maybe 3000.
Maine buys its birds from a commercial hatchery/raising operation in another state. At one time, the birds were raised here by volunteers (not state employees), but getting volunteers from a gun club to turn into poultry farmers is a hard sell. It's hard enough to get them to come to a monthly meeting let alone feed and water and protect a couple thousand pheasants on a daily basis. They have other, paying jobs. It wound up being 5 or 6 guys doing all the work. A few years ago when the volunteers in charge lost heart after some mink got into the pens and raised all kinds of [censored], the state went to buying birds. The one year the state had to buy more birds after the flock tested positive for a mosquito-borne illness and had to be destroyed.
Sometimes they're good flyers (like last year) and sometimes not so much (like 4-5 years ago).
Most if not all fish and game departments are primarily judged on and evaluate their own success on the results of deer season and the strength of their deer herd. Pennsylvania is one. (The Dakotas are the biggest exception in my opinion.) Pheasants take a distant second, third or fourth (behind turkeys and other big game). As it is, right now the PA guys who buy a license so they can hunt deer on the first day and the Saturdays of the season are subsidizing everything else. If you go to a pheasant stamp you will quickly find out how many guys are willing to part with another $25. (Not many. Surprisingly few.) The Game Commission will, too, and they will quickly adjust their priorities. And you won't see hundreds of thousands of birds being stocked ever again, nor will you see much research time, effort or money spent on restoring the populations that used to exist.
You don't have to believe me, but what I've told you is true.
