New for 4C

Catching penned pheasants takes about the same number of people who’d trot onto the field to defend against the Philadelphia Eagles’ offense. And the work is just as down and dirty.

You need “drivers” who move forward, spacing themselves so that the speedy pheasants can’t dart back past them to safety. The drivers can’t crowd the birds, or they’ll start flying, careening off pen walls and escaping. The walking forward speed must keep the pheasants moving ahead, into pen areas which steadily decrease in size.

Then dozens of bird crates are stacked in the “catch pen” area. As the birds are caught, they must be separated by male and female – not an easy task in the melee of a number of people working in a small area to catch a couple hundred birds.

I’ve experienced this while helping out at Zukovich Game Birds, Barnesville. Marty Zukovich’s wife Debbie and I knelt in straw, which had been spread on the ground for the bird catchers and bird crate loaders, since the ground was frozen in a mix of ice and snow. When the Pennsylvania Game Commission recently announced that beginning next season, hunters in the 4C management area can also take hen pheasants, I remember thinking that should make life easier for the folks who are catching them at the bird farms.

Travis Lau, communications director for the PGC, said that the change had multiple benefits, for both pheasant farm workers and hunters.

“By allowing either-sex hunting in more WMUs, the Game Commission can more freely put out the birds it produces,” Lau said. “It’s likely that hunters in WMUs that previously were roosters-only also will benefit now being part of the late-season stocking they previously missed out on.”

The change is also makes laws regarding pheasant harvest more standardized.

“The proposal to open more WMUs to either-sex pheasant hunting would create uniformity in the season, except in WMUs with active Wild Pheasant Recovery Areas,” Lau said. “Since we don’t have wild populations outside of WPRAs, there’s no biological reason to limit take outside of WPRAs to roosters only.”

Another change to regulations for pheasant hunting would be a requirement that junior hunters obtain a pheasant permit. Currently, junior hunters don’t need a pheasant permit; if the change becomes a requirement, the permit would be free to junior hunters.

So why is it needed?

“Issuance of the free permit will help the Game Commission quantify the number of youth participating in pheasant hunting annually – data that might entitle the agency to additional funding for the pheasant program through federal hunter recruitment funding initiatives,” Lau said. “The proposal also would remove the requirement to obtain a permit for individuals hunting and taking privately-acquired pheasants on private lands.”

Both those changes will be revisited at the next quarterly meetings of the commissioners, for a final vote.