Montana FWP pheasant scam

[bullbugle]

Seems simple enough for FWP to arrange w commercial bird hunting operations to provide access for young "hunters" that want this. Those places are already in the put-and-take pheasant business.

I don't see this strategy growing the sport of hunting or recruiting very many lifelong hunters.

But what it will do is create a sort of dependency. Look at Wyoming’s pheasant program, it’s one of the more popular things the GF does. I’d way rather we put all that money into habitat and access, but I’m in the minority, and I’ll damn sure get out and kill those pheasants, and enjoy it, even though I would axe that program in a heartbeat. No point having those expensive birds go to waste.

 

[rogerthat]

Since when has a program that made it easy for the kids ie lil crappers ever resulted in anything but a bunch of spoiled entitled little twerps. This is the root cause of the decay of our society. I’m taking my kids pheasant hunting out on the ingomar sage brush flats. It will prepare them for elk hunting Montanas general season or trying to shoot a nice muley in montana on public land period. They will learn to love just being out or they will quit like a loser. Either way I don’t take losers hunting

 

[Redside]

I got a kick out of the comment section in an instagram post they made about it.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks on Instagram: "In response to a trending decline in bird hunting, FWP has implemented a pheasant release program as an opportunity to recruit, retain, and reactivate Montana hunters. #montanafwp"

1,347 likes, 84 comments - montanafwp on October 12, 2022: "In response to a trending decline in bird hunting, FWP has implemented a pheasant release program as an opportunity to recruit, retain, and reactivate Montana hunters. #montanafwp".

www.instagram.com

 

[SwaggyD]

Growing up, we wandered miles, in the snow, in cotton jeans,

Shoulda done it in blue jeans.

 

[Irrelevant]

I got a kick out of the comment section in an instagram post they made about it.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks on Instagram: "In response to a trending decline in bird hunting, FWP has implemented a pheasant release program as an opportunity to recruit, retain, and reactivate Montana hunters. #montanafwp"

1,347 likes, 84 comments - montanafwp on October 12, 2022: "In response to a trending decline in bird hunting, FWP has implemented a pheasant release program as an opportunity to recruit, retain, and reactivate Montana hunters. #montanafwp".

www.instagram.com

Pretty consistent negative comments

 

[Flynarrow]

FWP does not have any evaluation of this program costing in excess of $1,000,000 per year from wildlife funds. No evaluation of the percentage of birds harvested vs total released (1/2 are hens illegal to harvest). Nor the cost of each harvested pheasant. Nor the weight gain of coyotes in pheasant release areas vs controls in non-release areas. Nor how many prisoners go on to be pheasant farmers. If prisoners packaged the pheasant legs and breasts into frozen handouts to hunters the return would be much higher and the prisoners would have potential jobs at Tyson.

 

[OntarioHunter]

How old do you have to be to hunt in Montana now? A couple of the kids in the video looked like they were maybe nine years old.

 

[OntarioHunter]

What? Half the birds released ar hens? Why? Studies in other states have shown 80% of the pheasants released are dead in two weeks if they're released in no hunting season/areas. Those hens are just going to waste. If the prison farm doesn't need them for their stupid program, the hens should be slaughtered and processed in the prison kitchen.

 

[rogerthat]

FWP does not have any evaluation of this program costing in excess of $1,000,000 per year from wildlife funds. No evaluation of the percentage of birds harvested vs total released (1/2 are hens illegal to harvest). Nor the cost of each harvested pheasant. Nor the weight gain of coyotes in pheasant release areas vs controls in non-release areas. Nor how many prisoners go on to be pheasant farmers. If prisoners packaged the pheasant legs and breasts into frozen handouts to hunters the return would be much higher and the prisoners would have potential jobs at Tyson.

Are you surprised?

 

[406dn]

The video is awful. The disparaging remarks are unsurprising.

The opening weekend of pheasant season was quite disappointing, compared to many I have enjoyed. It wasn't that there weren't sufficient birds, it was there was an unrelenting number of fellow hunters. This is, I think, largely the result of so much CRP land has been returned to cropland. It has a similar number of hunters trying to hunt fewer remaining spots offering good cover.

Montana could expand the program 10 fold and it would not move the needle towards improving pheasant hunting. Every serious bird hunter knows this, it is sad that our legislative representatives are not able to see the folly of this.

 

[Flynarrow]

Yes, it is folly to try to put additional pheasant hunters on declining acres of pheasant habitat. Stocking birds is a terrible hunter pacifier. When these youths....if there are any......that pursue real pheasant hunting they will soon find that the best habitat takes $$$ to access or is swarming with like pheasant hunting souls. $1,000,000 per year or $5,000,000 total would be much better spent on access or habitat or both. If you want the Legislature to manage your hunting, keep voting for those who believe they are biologists.

 

[OntarioHunter]

It's not about improving the pheasant hunting. It's about funneling wildlife habitat funding to help pay for the state's tweeker daycare program (which, from my limited observations, must be overrun with clients). This is a scandalously transparent and wholly frivolous misappropriation of federal funding. It would not surprise me if Montana is not the first to do this. I cannot believe the dim bulbs presently running MFWP could come up with an ingenious ripoff scheme like this on their own.

 

[Poke 'Em]

Who sells the birds/eggs to FWP? I'm real curious who else is benefitting from this program.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Who sells the birds/eggs to FWP? I'm real curious who else is benefitting from this program.

There's at least one Hutterite colony in Montana raising pheasants. I suspect the state is getting their birds from them. They usually supply ranches and outfitters who want to stock for clients. If so, that would be truly ironic as the colonies are infamous for ripping off the state's welfare system. Since everything the colony makes from ag business, including profits from their pheasant farming, goes to "the church," its residents are deemed without property or income. They qualify for free eyeglasses, dental, etc.

 

[QuazyQuinton]

I participate in the fee pheasant hunts here in Oregon on occasion. This plan sounds a little like what we have here. Neither is a long term benefit to the pheasant population.

Having said that, this thread may have the highest self-righteous to useful comment ratio I have ever seen.

QQ

 

[rogerthat]

I participate in the fee pheasant hunts here in Oregon on occasion. This plan sounds a little like what we have here. Neither is a long term benefit to the pheasant population.

Having said that, this thread may have the highest self-righteous to useful comment ratio I have ever seen.

QQ

Thanks for adding to the numerator

 

[406dn]

Thanks for adding to the numerator

Thanks for the genuine chuckle.

 

[BigHornRam]

West Virginia just released 12,000 bobwhite quail. They probably won’t be here next year but I sure would like to be able to hear them.

Come to the Bitterroot. There are quail everywhere. Started out with some on the west side, and now they are all over on the east side as well.

 

[300stw]

pics and videos of pheasants running all over the gravel roads, and a few hotels face book showing harvested roosters, bring hunters from about any state there is, to hunt these "wily" birds, and a few local economies capitalize,,,,,
i dont think the average hunter gets many of the pen raised birds, Idaho releases lots of birds weekly, and mobs of hunters on small tracts of land, i think the succes per hunter is pretty low, have a few relatives that hunt them once in a while, its always a shit show,,,,

 

[Bambistew]

How did all those "native" pheasants get into Montana in the first place? Was there something different about how they were raised and released back then vs the program now, or are they just the remnants of those failed programs?

What are some examples of habitat that could be enhanced with $1M a year that would increase pheasant numbers by by an appreciable amount? Seems like a lot of red tape with low chance of doing anything meaningful.

How many pheasants are released in SD every year? 4-500K? Stocking must sorta work, they are not "native" to SD either.