Truly wild pheasants both roosters and hens (40 or 50 generations of wild genes) flushing wing beats are fast like humming birds, very rapid. After being chased by predators from the day they came out of the egg, the wild birds cardiovascular system is far superior to a pen-raised bird. The pen raised birds that you see on those preserve videos fly in slow motion.
With that being said, if some of the stocked birds survive the first week or two they can get into shape. It helps to have pen raised with wary and alert genes that have a better chance of adapting to the wild and flushing like wild birds quicker.
I have said this before but I will say it again, if we want to maintain a wild and vigorous alert and predator wary population of wild pheasant in North America, we need to go back to China soon and get authentic wild eggs (wild from the bush).
If it was wisdom 120 years ago to bring wild pheasants from China to N. America, it also make sense today. Can you imagine the prairie state without wild pheasants today in 2011.
I am a firm believer in stocking wilder strains of pen raised pheasant that's how wild pheasants got started over 100 years ago.
But some (not all) of the pen raised birds are almost tame, poor fliers and no signs of predator alertness after almost 70 or 80 generations of living in a pen and years of inbreeding. After some of these tame birds are released you can drive right up close to them, and they have no sense of danger.
Read or scroll down to the 6th paragraph of the article below and read what the writer says about wild hens from parents that have never been in pens. He explains that the authentic wild hens will average only 22 eggs per laying season. On the other hand game farm pheasants hens lay 60 plus eggs per season:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...4oSFBA&usg=AFQjCNGN4CNBgn7y2mYLcZ7w31YeIVFf9w
Thousands and thousands of mallard ducks fly over to N. America from Asia and Russia (some over the arctic circle) every year and cross or mix with N. American mallards, which help maintain the wild mallard duck population and those mallards from Asia are not considered invasive.
Thousands of Sandhill Cranes that hatch on the Siberian side of the arctic circle fly down to the southern plains each winter and they are not considered invasive.
With that being said, if some of the stocked birds survive the first week or two they can get into shape. It helps to have pen raised with wary and alert genes that have a better chance of adapting to the wild and flushing like wild birds quicker.
I have said this before but I will say it again, if we want to maintain a wild and vigorous alert and predator wary population of wild pheasant in North America, we need to go back to China soon and get authentic wild eggs (wild from the bush).
If it was wisdom 120 years ago to bring wild pheasants from China to N. America, it also make sense today. Can you imagine the prairie state without wild pheasants today in 2011.
I am a firm believer in stocking wilder strains of pen raised pheasant that's how wild pheasants got started over 100 years ago.
But some (not all) of the pen raised birds are almost tame, poor fliers and no signs of predator alertness after almost 70 or 80 generations of living in a pen and years of inbreeding. After some of these tame birds are released you can drive right up close to them, and they have no sense of danger.
Read or scroll down to the 6th paragraph of the article below and read what the writer says about wild hens from parents that have never been in pens. He explains that the authentic wild hens will average only 22 eggs per laying season. On the other hand game farm pheasants hens lay 60 plus eggs per season:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...4oSFBA&usg=AFQjCNGN4CNBgn7y2mYLcZ7w31YeIVFf9w
Thousands and thousands of mallard ducks fly over to N. America from Asia and Russia (some over the arctic circle) every year and cross or mix with N. American mallards, which help maintain the wild mallard duck population and those mallards from Asia are not considered invasive.
Thousands of Sandhill Cranes that hatch on the Siberian side of the arctic circle fly down to the southern plains each winter and they are not considered invasive.
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