December 12, 2008
Game Farm Road facility in crosshairs
State budget cuts could end pheasant program
From Staff and Wire Reports
ITHACA — The state Department of Environmental Conservation has not confirmed it will close the Richard E. Reynolds Game Farm in the Town of Dryden, but it is being considered for closure in light of state spending cuts, prompting reactions from both hunters and animal-rights activists.
The farm, on Game Farm Road east of the main Cornell University campus, has five employees. The DEC spends $750,000 yearly to operate the game farm, which has been in operation since 1927, according to the DEC Web site. Yearly, the state disperses 60,000 day-old pheasant chicks, 15,000 7- to 10-week-old pheasants, and 25,000 adult pheasants so that they can be hunted throughout the state.
State DEC spokesman Yancey Roy wouldn't confirm whether the game farm will be closed but said by e-mail that it is among programs considered for ending.
“Consistent with the actions being taken by all state agencies, the DEC has been conducting an across-the-board evaluation of all of its programs in order to find potential savings, including the Reynolds Game Farm,” Roy said. “Until the governor's budget is released next week, DEC will not be commenting on the impact budget constraints will have on any specific programs.”
Gov. David Paterson plans to release his budget for next year next week, a month earlier than usual because of an expected huge budget deficit for the fiscal year starting April 1.
In a letter this week to DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis, New York State Humane Society Director Patrick Kwan thanked the DEC for closing the game farm.
“Pheasant stocking for recreational shooting serves no legitimate wildlife management purpose and in a time of budget shortfall should not divert resources away from protecting native wildlife and habitat,” Kwan wrote. “Quite simply, hunting demands that animals be given a reasonable chance to escape, not released from the back of a truck at an announced date and time. Animals raised in a pen will never exhibit the same survival skills as naturalized or wild birds.”
“We are in some very difficult economic times and with so many legitimate programs in New York state that are facing cuts, it's absolutely inexcusable for taxpayer money to be going toward what is essentially recreational killing and target practice using live animals,” Kwan added.
The Humane Society told Grannis that studies show that hunters or predators or the elements kill the birds within a few weeks of their release.
The primary purpose of the pheasant propagation program is to provide pheasant hunting opportunity, not to restore wild pheasant populations, according to a description of the program on the DEC Web site. Few of the thousands of released pheasants survive until spring to reproduce, according to the DEC. All three programs require that the birds are released on land open to public hunting.
New York has had as many as seven pheasant game farms, but for roughly 10 years, Reynolds game farm has been the only one in the state, according to the DEC.
“Hunters are quite upset with it,” said Harold Palmer, president of the New York State Conservation Council. “There's no guarantee the state's going to come back and purchase pheasants to stock in future years.”
The remaining pheasants at the farm are breeders with clipped wings, preventing them from flying, Palmer said. “Hunters are opposed to the state dumping them out for predators to get.”
He said sportsmen have come up with several ideas, such as butchering the birds and donating them to food pantries. “We don't want them to go to waste.
The DEC says its small game hunter survey in 2006-07 indicated that about 60,000 hunters killed 130,000 pheasants statewide.
Stephen Wowelko, president of the Onondaga County Federation of Sportsmen Clubs near Syracuse, said pheasant hunting is the primary sport for many people with hunting dogs and they're wondering whether they'll have anything to hunt if the game farm closes. The club has its own pheasant rearing program, but it gets the chicks from the state farm.
The farm also releases about 15,000 immature birds in hunting areas in summer so they have time to settle into the habitat before the fall hunting season, when they'll “provide a more traditional experience hunting wilder birds,” according to the DEC Web site.
Pennsylvania has cut its program in half since 2004, saving more than a million dollars, but the Game Commission plans to continue releasing about 100,000 birds a year.
New York had seven farms in the 1970s. The Ithaca facility is the last remaining after a Western New York farm was closed in 1999 to save money.
