Advocate Calls For End To Pheasant Stocking After Birds Die On LI Road

MANORVILLE, NY — After young pheasants were found struck and killed on Sunrise Highway in Eastport and Manorville recently, an animal advocate is calling on state officials for change.

John Di Leonardo, president and executive director of Humane Long Island, is calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to stop the state's "failed" artificial pheasant propagation program that breeds pheasants "only to be killed before they're ever hunted," he said.

Hochul and the DEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Di Leonardo said many hunters, conservationists and wildlife advocates are sounding a rallying cry against the practice of pheasant "stocking."

According to the DEC's website: "Pheasant hunting in New York has a long history and is highly valued by hunters throughout the state. The first hunting season for pheasants was designated in 1908 and DEC remains committed to providing recreational opportunity for hunters. Today, the wild pheasant population is at an all-time low attributed to habitat loss and land use changes."

The DEC added that despite the decline in wild pheasant abundance, state-stocked pheasants are raised at the Richard E. Reynolds game farm in Ithaca.

"Annually, over 30,000 adult pheasants are released just prior to and during the fall pheasant hunting season," the DEC said. "The goal of the pheasant propagation program is not to restore wild pheasant populations, but to provide upland game bird hunting opportunity. Releases occur across the state on over 200 public lands and private lands that are open to public hunting. We strive to maintain pheasant hunting opportunity in all regions of the state."

Di Leonardo said animal advocates consider "stocking" to be "futile," "not successful" and "inappropriate" because the pheasants, native to open fields in Central and eastern Asia, China, and Japan, are unable to adapt to wild, woodland conditions.

Half are killed within the first week of release and it's rare for even a single bird to survive until spring, Di Leonardo said, adding that they are "helpless."

And while the DEC said the program is aimed at providing pheasant hunting opportunities, most die before they are ever hunted, killed by predators, run over by cars, or starving to death.

"Gov. Hochul must end the failed practice of artificially breeding pheasants for the sole purpose of killing them," Di Leonardo said. "Non-native and pen-raised, these baby birds are literally 'born to die', with more than 90 percent being killed by predators while others are run over by cars or starve. Hunting states like Minnesota and South Dakota ended their failed pheasant breeding programs decades ago, so why is New York still promoting this futile and cruel exercise that does nothing but torture baby birds and cause hazards on our highways?"

Humane Long Island notes that these statistics do not even include birds who never make it until release due to the hazards of "overcrowded, factory-farm conditions". In March 2023, more than 6,000 pheasants were killed at Reynolds's Game Farm, according to Field and Stream, after at least 500 pheasants died from H5N1 avian influenza.

A similar outbreak permanently closed Spring Farm—an 82-year-old game farm for captive-bred pheasants and waterfowl in Sag Harbor last year, Di Leonardo said, referring to a Newsday report.

Di Leonardo said that nearly 2,000 pheasants have been or will be released in Otis Pike Preserve in Manorville before Christmas, with an additional 2,000 being left in Rocky Point.

"More than 26,000 baby birds will be abandoned at sites throughout New York State," Di Leonardo said.

New York State Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, he said, has also called for an end to "this inhumane and anti-conservationist program, introducing legislation to close Reynold's Game Farm and end state support of this failed program."