I Wish They Would Provide Backup

W

-Wildcat-

Super Moderator
I know very little regarding pen-raising, and even less about survival rates, etc. However, if a national publication releases articles like these, I really wish they would back up their claims with facts, even if it's to references previously disseminated by their own authors.

I have read that several of you have had at least some success with releasing pen-raised birds into the wild, but this article seems to completely refute any chance of success.

http://www.bringbackbobwhites.org/n...92-once-again-pen-raised-quail-not-the-answer

Note: The article is a downloadable PDF.

Something has to be amiss if you "simpletons" (sarcasm of course) have had success doing this when "prestigious" biologists say it won't work, period.

Edit: Here is the NBCI's executive report with findings and strategies for restoring the Bobwhite Quail population, in case anyone is interested in reading it.

http://www.bringbackbobwhites.org/strategy/executive-report
 
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Like most reports that I have read.....no meat with the potatoes.:mad:

I have never released birds for the purpose of reestablishing populations of quail. I use them for training and ensure that I band all birds before release and attempt to remove all birds the same day.

I’m support the author statement that “diminishing habitat” is the number one major issue that has negatively impacted bobwhites the most.
 
Minnesota's DNR says the same thing about stocking walleye's. Oh it doesn't work...funny, it works fine when your stocking Red Lake which is over 3/4 controlled by Red Lakes native Indian tribe. It was decimated by the natives commercially netting the lake. Our beloved DNR restocked it and it now has walleye's like the good old days but remember..IT DOESN'T WORK. The line of boats waiting to put in at the landing is just a figment of our imagination. The stringers of walleye's are too.

Pennsylvania's DNR has a program that you can get free pheasant chicks/egg's to raise and release. The state of South Dakota releases something like a million birds a year I believe in some tough years.

IMO, it has more to do with nesting success then habitat. When nearly 90-95% of nest's have total loss because of predator's and poor weather.
 
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Ask the folks in Northern Montana if stocking pen raised pheasants works.:cheers: All you need is year around habitat, food source and predator control, pen raised pheasants do real well in the wild.
MN DNR Biologists said for 100% certain wild Turkeys CAN NOT survive in Hubbard County. Guess what:confused:
We might have more wild turkeys then any place, anywhere. :)
 
I've stated this before. If stocking to establish populations doesn't work, where did all the wild pheasants, chuckars, and huns come from? Don't lecture me with the "well they were "wild" birds from china crap either. In the 1800's it took months to get from China to the US, all that time those birds were in cages, probably weeks before shipping, month or so on the ship, and weeks after shipping before arrival at the release site. I might point out that the releases were by ordinary citizens for the most part, without any great impact study by the theoritical geniuses who spend the budget doing studies to tell us why it doesn't work. If you release them and it doesn't work, the excercise proves itself. Any hunter worth his salt can eyeball habitat and give an educated opinion of quality and chances of success. For the cost of the study, and the staff to run it, you can release a hell of a lot of birds, and let the birds, ( the real experts), tell us what works or doesn't. I have three semi-wild aclimated coveys of quail on 40 acres, where there were none previously, using a soft release johnny house system. British use a soft release program for pheasant rearing, have for 150 years, gather eggs from previously released "wild" birds to hatch in the incubator, and start the cycle over. It's called game keeping. We on the other hand have game "management". I think the difference is obvious. The mission in gamekeeping is to increase and protect the preffered game species. Their system includes exhaustive preadator control, to mitigate the effect upon preferred species, ours treats all species equally. Hawks, owls, skunks, coons, possums, weasels, et.al.
 
Believe it or not way up here in Aitkin and St Louis counties of northern Minnesota. We now have wild turkey's. I have seen numerous birds and I seen a hen with 10-12 chicks the other day. They said they would not survive here either. We had near record snow depths last winter and birds made it through the winter and are raising young this year. I have seen a pheasant or two around too.

This pic of this rooster is from a area which it's 10 miles in all direction to any home/farm..in the middle of state forest land on the boarder of Aitkin and St Louis county. All thick heavy forest area with lots of swamp, slews and woods.

pheasant10-6-10.jpg
 
well said onpoint- we didn't have turkeys in the wild in Kansas

interesting thing also- can't release quail because they won't make it- hum-
untill the big farm machinery went thru here and turned the knee high grass/weed into plowed sand two night's in a row- I had 3 pairs calling, nesting, and even one I found with a cluster of eggs

if it wasn't so dry- I would let some loose

3M had a large enclosure- pretty darn big- that they raised pheasants and their club would hunt- not to far from Hubbard County-
we knew some got out- had some fun times with our Goldens
 
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Seems to me if the DNR says it won't work you should do it. They said stocking walleyes in the river would not work:( Guess what poeple stocked them and now we're catching them at all the bridges and rock dams:) Dnr said woodducks house waste of time seems like mine work GREAT:) I think that theirs some not so bright poeple running the DNR:(
 
The real truth is if done right with hard work(HARDER WORK THEN THE NAY SAYERS LIKE TO DO THEM SELVES) It works. I realize road side surveys and pushing pencils are difficult tasks along with writing tickets for weeds on your boat. Those are very important jobs.:rolleyes: But we do in fact know it works.I look out side and in fact, see it every day. Yes I agree if you have no where to live, you will likely move or die off. But like I have said many times, if done right, it works. I bet you could raise one of the nay sayers kids and release them in LA, and they would not survive.
 
For example, in Southern MN Fairbault CO and surrounding. When I grew up, good luck getting pheasants in the early 80's and 90's. They launched MN pheasants inc. My dad was one of them. They raised and released birds on a mass scale. Many farmers down to guys in garages did it. Now the population is unbelievable in that area of sth MN and IA. They did it with very little cover. They are getting better at cover work as well, but due to great farming conditions, it is about maxed out in set aside acres. It does not change the FACT, that those folks and hard work changed the pheasant population there forever.:thumbsup: If you get 2 stinking hens to live and nest successfully, you have just increased your birds by about 20. Now those are truly wild, and if 5 of those nest next year, left alone and cared for, what does that start to look like.
:thumbsup::10sign:
 
I'll say it again. The trouble with these "studies" is. [example]
The pheasants have disappeared in a certain area. [probably East of the Mississippi]. The WMA has the habitat, so why are the pheasants gone?
So time for the state guys to do a study.
A game farm is contracted to pen raise a couple hundred pheasants. Released about half grown into the WMA.
Predator control is NOT part of the program. Why? because it's a Wildlife Management Area and not politically correct. "We need a pray vs predator balance". You hear that always these days with the DNR and others making the decisions.
Results of the study show 5% of the pheasant survived. Not worth the investment. Habitat is in place, no mention of predation.
We all can figure it out. So why would they expect pen raised birds to make it where the wild ones couldn't?
 
Get real.

How would the situation with quail be any different than pheasants?

In the past on this website multiple citations have been provided that do more than enough to justify discouraging release of pheasants as a valid strategy for those who want to grow the population (raising them for put/followed shortly by take--or--dog training--being different).

The largest pheasant habitat organization--pheasants forever--strongly discourages such practice and has repeatedly submitted evidence backing up their claims.

Each and every one of those posts has been heavily bashed. The researchers have been bashed. Game and Fish or DNR staff--god help them, they sure get no quarter here! Posters of that information have been ridiculed--even by moderators.
 
You have clarify exactly which type of pen-raised game bird you are talking about.

In the case of pheasants every wild pheasant that breaks cover flies and cackles on a cold frosty fall morning in S. Dakota or Kansas or show up on the glossy cover of a PF magazine, can trace their ancestors to a bird that spent some time in a pen (or as Oldandnew mentioned in a cage on a slow boat from China) maybe 100 years ago others only 30 or 40 years ago.

With that being said after 40 or 50 generations of living in the pen both pheasants and bobwhite quail will naturally lose some of their natural wild alert instincts.
The reason for this is simple. In the real natural wild world full of hungry meat eating predators and harsh too hot or too cold weather or too wet or too dry weather only the wisest, smartest, strongest, most alert birds live long enough to mate in spring and reproduce.

But this is not the case after years and years in the pen (40 or 50 generations) because their is no need to maintain alertness, tameness and non-alertness is not being selected out by nature. So after years and years the fat tame birds in the pen will lay most of the eggs and reproduce and look identical in appearance (maybe a little fatter) to truly wild birds.
So we need pen-raised game birds but we need to use birds with wild and alert genes as f1 brood stock, don't use the same old inbred tame bird over and over for years and years.

For this reason I am a firm believer in leaving the door open to obtain new authentic wild true pheasants genes ( wild blood never been in a pen) directly from China. I am talking about wild true pheasants only ringneck type.
I will talk about bobwhite quail on my next post.
 
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Quote Preston
"
For this reason I am a firm believer in leaving the door open to obtain new authentic wild true pheasants genes ( wild blood never been in a pen) directly from China. I am talking about wild true pheasants only ringneck type. "

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I would really like to know just how well any wild pheasants are doing in China. The government offers little protection to the environment or habitat. Pollution is at a all time high. Their population has to effect any area that would possibly hold pheasants. I would bet the birds Org. released here in the states were pen raised themselves.
 
I think that a huge determining factor in success of pen raised birds introduced to the wild, is 1.) how they are raised, are they raised in large pens, flight conditioned, fed insects, weather hardened, allowed to eat weed seeds and learn what food looks like, develop some flight response? or are they raised on wire, debeaked, fed Purina gamebird chow, and desensitized to human and predatory animal contact around the safety of the pen? A properly pen raised bird, will demonstrate skills which are remarkablly similar to a wild bird. Problem in introduction of either is that the introduced bird DOESN'T KNOW THE TERRITORY.....as Meredith Wilson says in the Music Man. A bird born into the territory that survives to early adulthood, know where the danger comes from, where the food is, where the escape cover is. A wild released bird and a pen-raised bird share in common a lack of knowledge of that the particular habitat requires, they make mistakes, it's trial and error, there are causualties, yet some survive and given the proper conditions nest and rear broods. Maybe not in huge numbers, maybe not without effort put forth over many years. I am amussed by the fact that Pheasants Forever, preaches the gospel of habitat and the sin of released birds, but yet it's A.O.K for them to sponsor a restocking of Pennsylvania, with so called "wild" birds, caught and put into pens, fed by hand, and shipped across the country from South Dakota to a western Pa. release site, where they are summarily dumped out into blessed, expensively and extensively studied and laughably isolated and fragmented "pheasant habitat" which may not look like or resemble anything like a prairie pothole enviornment these birds grew up in. For all we know, those very birds were released by S.D. shooting preserves, as mandated by the state regulation, prior to being live trapped, ( maybe turned themselves in) by the transplant teams. Now That's science!!! Does anyone else grasp the irony, and stupidity of this "do as I tell you, not as I do", mentality? Miraculously by tenacious determination, I wager some of these birds will prove to be survivors, because this is one very adaptable bird. Perhaps a few more of the "wild" trapped birds will survive as a compared to properly raised pen birds, but if a record of cost were to be used, I suspect that if compared, dollar for dollar cost to establish a viable population would be stilted in favor of the "pennies". Of course we'd have to for go the fun and expense of the live trapping circus, the ridiculous endless feasibility studies which tell us what we already know, done by every state in the union,( maybe Missouri and Iowa could share data? how bout New York and Pa.), nearly constant buggering by earnest college students, retrapping to weigh and radio tag,( no stress there), nest surveys, heaven knows what else, all paid for by our Pitman-Robertson funds. All over an asian bird which has proven throughout the centuries that he/she is more than capable. Repeat after me! Releasing birds doesn't work! write it in stone, they came across the ice bridge with the original human inhabitants..... man can't fly..... we never went to the moon.... the world is flat....tomatoes are poisionous.......there's no law west of the Peco's......and lest I forget, the check is in the mail!!!!
 
A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to get invited to hunt with someone who works as a guide for one of the really big SD preserves. I forget just how many tens of thousands of roosters they release every year, to supplement the wild birds, but it was enormous. He said that they also released an equal number of hens. The hens were just feathered out and capable of flight at the time of their release. He told me that they joined up with the wild broods, and at the least took pressure off the wild population as far as predators were concerned. He claimed this practice helped populations bounce back after years with tough winters or poor nesting conditions. His claim was that other places he guided that didn't release hens in this manner had to do a lot more releases of cock birds to maintain the population.

I don't know how accurate his assessment was, but there were more birds in that area than any other I have hunted in SD.

I also hunt a walk-in area next to a preserve. Released birds fly in and mingle with the wild population. The only way you can tell the ones that have survived a few weeks on their own from the released birds is the mark where the blinders were placed. I've never shot a majority of obviously released birds on that land, and the ones I did didn't fly anything like the just released birds I've shot at a preserve near home.

The owner of the place where I eat when in SD told me that he buys 50 hens every year from the hatchery once they are done with their hatching season. He releases them on 40 acres of CRP he has. Between those hens and the wild birds he and his family get all the shooting they want or need every year. He said he tried to skip a year and it didn't work out so well.

So, I'm with those that say if predator control is in place and the habitat is suitable you can build up a population as much as the habitat will support. It is just a lot of work and you have to be realistic about survival rates.
 
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