2109 - PHEASANT MANAGEMENT
Issued January 1, 1977

PHEASANT MANAGEMENT

WILDLIFE

The pheasant is Michigan's most important farmland game bird.  It is the best judgment of the Department, based on numerous and extensive surveys, that all suitable habitat in the State is now adequately stocked with pheasants.  Stocking was done initially to establish pheasants in the wild and this was accomplished in all suitable areas by the mid-thirties.  Once established, wild birds are much more capable of increasing populations to the carrying level than an artificial stocking program.  Seasonal variations in the environment determine numbers and closing any county to hunting will not increase numbers.  A pheasant's life span is short and there is little carry-over from year-to-year so most birds shot are of young-of-the-year.  The more severe climate of northern lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula will only support a spotty population.  Most pheasants taken by sportsmen are shot on privately owned land.

Stocking of pheasants--except for put-take hunting--is no longer productive and shall not be done except on an experimental basis with strains not now available to us.  The Department shall cooperate with private landowners to improve range on their lands and State game lands in the pheasant range will be improved for pheasants as far as practicable and economically feasible.  Maximum seasons and bag limits shall prevail except in the Upper Peninsula.  Persons or groups shall not be encouraged to buy or raise pheasants for general release.

Procedure is contained in Wildlife Division manual - No. 11.