Author Topic: What really happened to the pheasants in PA (Read 3041 times)

shotgunner · « **on:** March 25, 2010, 12:09:44 PM »

There is a simple explanation for the lack of wild phesants in PA and elsewhere. Farming practices are often give as the reason, and it is true. What has changed in the last 40 years in the north east is how hay is harvested. farmers are now chopping hay in the early season. Many of them hire it done, you will see large JD combines running is hay fields in May. This hay is put in silos and put up in plastic wrap and fed to cows. The farmers get a second and third cutting this way, and it was not done years ago. The pheasants nest in the hay fields and the birds and their eggs are killed on the nest. Many turkeys are also lost this way also. You can't do much about farming, and it is a shame that we don't have more birds. Shotgunner

Sheila · « **Reply #1 on:** March 27, 2010, 04:26:23 PM »

To many preditors.

shotgunner · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2010, 01:02:57 AM »

There are of course many factors in play. Hawks and especially owls are a big problem. Their numbers will never again be curtailed and that is too bad. Nesting is the big thing however. During seasons of drought the duck numbers drop. In the northern pothole country where they nest the farmers can work closer to the ponds, cutting over the nests. It is a similar situation. Shotgunner

bobg · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2010, 02:37:38 AM »

You have that right shotgunner. When they started taking out the hedge rows and cutting hay in May that was the end of pheasants in WNY. In the early 60's i could get off the school bus in the afternoon. Run in the house grab my gun and dog and head for the field across the road. Oops MOM made me change my clothes first. I could be back home in less than 2 hours with a limit of pheasants. You sure don't see this anymore.

bobg

Hairtrigger · « **Reply #4 on:** March 28, 2010, 03:56:53 AM »

Farmers putting chemicals on the crops do not help. Fence rows have disappeared. Way more hawks and more coyotes. More people living in the country along with their cats and dogs.
I don't think there is one reason.
In my area they used wait until summer to mow along the roads but when there are no birds there is no reason so mowing season starts when the grass gets 12-18" in the spring

shotgunner · « **Reply #5 on:** March 28, 2010, 04:06:38 AM »

It is a hard situation and you can not blame the farmers. The state will pay to have farmers plant a field that will support game. I just bought a discbine from a guy who is doing so and I am going to look into it. There are more and more farms that are not milking cows, some are still selling hay, this guy is planting food plots for others. Shotgunner

Mtn Jack · « **Reply #6 on:** April 03, 2010, 09:32:48 AM »

Its not the farms, i have one, and my oldest girl has 300 head cow herd. Our farms have plenty of habitat for the birds, in fact most areas of Pa are hard to farm so that leaves a lot of edge cover. A lot of farms have become abandon which also make good cover. The problem happened when the hawks and owls were protected. All of the small game took a big hit. Rabbits are very seldom seen except in the spring, ruffed grouse are seldom seen any more, tree rats are plenty full. So we took up hunting the predators plenty of fur and feathers flying around here.

dougell · « **Reply #7 on:** April 22, 2010, 12:55:10 PM »

Do they have hawks and coyotes in the dakotas?Any increase in predators can have somewhat of an impact on prey populations but habitat is the determining factor.If pheasants in Pa had thousands of acres of CRP like they do in the midwest,they would also thrive here.Farming practices have changed and that's what directly impacted the pheasant population in this state.

Wyo. Coyote Hunter · « **Reply #8 on:** April 22, 2010, 02:23:18 PM »

I am afraid I have to agree with Mt. Jack....our sage grouse are declining...the habitat is as good as ever, when you can get a biologist to speak truthfully and off the record, predators are a problem...we are seeing that with the wolves in yellowstone and the west...but folks have been brain washed to believe predatory animals and birds don't need controlled...most folks I know believe what they read or hear on the tv and are too foolish to open their eyes and look around...it is called propoganda, and it is taking over our lives we now even have it in the game and fish dept. we used to be able to trust......

dougell · « **Reply #9 on:** April 22, 2010, 06:12:52 PM »

I don't think anyone will deny that an increase in predators can effect small game populations.However,that isn't what happened to the pheasants in Pa.We've always had predators and the pheasants didn't disapear practically overnight because they got eaten.It's all about habitat.Pheasants need high grass to nest in and avoid predators.Farming practices have changed and so did the habitat.We have plenty of other prey animals like squirrels,chipmunks and grouse.If predators were to blame,these animals would be wiped out as well.

Wyo. Coyote Hunter · « **Reply #10 on:** April 23, 2010, 05:30:06 AM »

In the areas in central Pa. where I hunt, they have been...

dougell · « **Reply #11 on:** April 23, 2010, 06:24:07 AM »

Quote from: Wyo. Coyote Hunter on April 23, 2010, 05:30:06 AM

In the areas in central Pa. where I hunt, they have been...

I live in northern Clearfield county and see loads of squirrel and this past year flushed loads of grouse in certain areas.

Flash · « **Reply #12 on:** April 26, 2010, 03:05:58 AM »

When I was a youngster, the corn stubble was up to my knees after it was harvested. Now, it is up to my ankles. The soybean was the same way. Everything is now used for silage and leaves no cover for nesting hens. Blame it all on technology.

steg · « **Reply #13 on:** June 19, 2010, 08:03:06 AM »

I still remember my first year hunting at 12 years old, 51 years ago, we were hunting in the Cunningham valley here in NE PA, when the season opened up all you could hear were shots going off all over the place and those old timers back then weren't wasting shells, now just about the whole thing is subdivisions and all of it is posted, last Phesant shot there that I remember was in 1975 and it had a band on its leg that had 1972 stamped on it, don't remember if he called the Warden to report it or not...............steg

Torwe · « **Reply #14 on:** June 19, 2010, 10:13:48 AM »

I was raised in S Central Pa and back then small game of all kinds was more than plentiful. But then again the state paid bounties on fox, weasel, horned owls, and red tail hawks. Seems to me that means something.

shotgunner · « **Reply #15 on:** June 20, 2010, 02:24:23 AM »

I have raised pheasants and it seems like everything that eats meat wants a bird or two. Owls might be the worst problem, but mink, cats dogs even rats will prey on them. There have always been predators. If you look around the farms right now many fields are already cut, not mine I am square bailing and it needs to be dry. The birds can't reproduce when the cover they use is taken before the eggs can hatch. I do not blame the farmers, they need to make a living, but it is the reason we do not have a "native" population. Shotgunner

Dusty Ed · « **Reply #16 on:** July 08, 2010, 02:32:57 AM »

Howdy Pards
Here is what I think happened to the Pheasant ,Back in the early 70's we had the Avain Flu Epedemic and it got into the Pheasant pens and the game commision release them any way.
The following year you couldn't find a wild bird any where.
I was talking to a Fellow who used to work at the State Pheasant Pens up at Montoursville , he claims that a pen raised hen has no idea how to nest, they will wonder around Laying an egg here and there and never setting on them.
I'd say that is why the recovery is so slow. Along with the Herbicides, Farming Pratices, Varmits,
Dusty Ed

84Jim · « **Reply #17 on:** July 08, 2010, 04:51:48 AM »

I agree with most of the reasons given, farming practices, varmits etc., but think that those are reasons why we never had a big population, not why they have become extinct, at least in the SW part of the state. I gotta believe that the final blow was some kind of disease, like what has happened to the honey bees. You'd think the game commission would do some reasearch and let us know, unless like Dusty Ed said, they are the ones responsible.

shotgunner · « **Reply #18 on:** July 09, 2010, 05:57:07 PM »

I have seen 3 different hens, along the sides of the road this spring. Look like they are not extinct just yet. I have hatched pheasants, raised them in a pen and had them nest. Not all of them, but more then just one or two. Shotgunner

Swampman · « **Reply #19 on:** July 09, 2010, 06:34:54 PM »

They never were native. Did the state release them?

84Jim · « **Reply #20 on:** July 20, 2010, 10:27:44 AM »

Just saw 2 honey bees working on the clover, so they aren't totally extinct in Wash County. Now pheasants, that's another story. Haven't heard or seen a bird around here in I don't know how long. There were a few around here until the early 90's, and if you hunted hard enough you could usually get a shot or 2 a year. Not now, though. I don't know if its a coincidence or not, but the last bird I got here was infested with fleas. I'm lucky I skinned him outside.

DDZ · « **Reply #21 on:** July 20, 2010, 11:20:03 AM »

I have been avoiding this thread, but I do have one question for those that don't think the GC stocking program had much do do with the pheasant extinction in the state.

As some of you know the GC has been trying to reintroduce wild birds in certain areas of the state. The GC does not allow any stocking of pen raised birds in these areas. So what do those, that think the stocking program didn't have much affect on the wild bird population, think is the reason for this?

shotgunner · « **Reply #22 on:** July 22, 2010, 01:16:19 AM »

Birds can't breed and nest where the nests are mowed over, it is a s simple as that. Of course there are other factors, but spring hay cutting is the reason, through out the northeast, that pheasants don't breed. My brother-in-law was a biologist for the NY DEC. They sent him to the pot hole country in Canada and the northern parts of the US. Duck populations drop after a drought because the farmers plow and plant up the the waters edge, then cut the wheat when the nests are still active. This is not rocket science, not a conspiracy, it is just agriculture. Shotgunner

shotgunner · « **Reply #23 on:** July 24, 2010, 02:41:38 AM »

I saw a hen pheasant yesterday afternoon, just a couple of miles from my house. She had some chicks with her, could not tell how many. They were on the edge of an un-cut hay field. Maybe all is not lost after all. While I don't think things will ever go back to they way they were in the 50s, the birds are not gone just yet. Shotgunner

Star1pup · « **Reply #24 on:** September 19, 2010, 03:41:12 AM »

Sounds like the same reasons as here in Ohio. I also heard that the blizzards of 76 & 77 were partially to blame. I heard this on a radio show yesterday. I don't remember those blizzards, but at my age I can't remember my phone number. I'm so old I remember when we had plenty of pheasants & grouse in Ohio and went to PA for deer. I sure miss those days, even the PA deer.

375supermag · « **Reply #25 on:** September 19, 2010, 06:49:20 AM »

Quote from: Dusty Ed on July 08, 2010, 02:32:57 AM

Howdy Pards
Here is what I think happened to the Pheasant ,Back in the early 70's we had the Avain Flu Epedemic and it got into the Pheasant pens and the game commision release them any way.
The following year you couldn't find a wild bird any where.
I was talking to a Fellow who used to work at the State Pheasant Pens up at Montoursville , he claims that a pen raised hen has no idea how to nest, they will wonder around Laying an egg here and there and never setting on them.
I'd say that is why the recovery is so slow. Along with the Herbicides, Farming Pratices, Varmits,
Dusty Ed

I agree that the avian influenza epidemic was the root cause of the decline. Whether the game commission released infected birds or not, I do not know, but I think the avian influenza and spraying pesticides for gypsy moths were the major cause of the enormous decline in wild pheasant populations. Coupled with changing ag practices, the pheasants just haven't been able to make a comeback.