Miscount leads to fewer pheasants in managed wildlife areas

Some wildlife management areas in Idaho will have a lower ring-necked pheasant count in the final weeks of hunting season, Idaho Fish and Game announced.

The bird shortage is due to a miscount by the supplier.

“Our supplier recently discovered that they were short by about 800 birds,” Fish and Game wildlife biologist Tyler Archibald said in a press release. “And only one of the 58 other bird farms contacted had any surplus birds available.”

Four-hundred pheasants have been added to the stocking schedule and will make up more than half the original pheasant shortfall.

“We’ve adjusted pheasant stocking rates for the last three weeks of the season to absorb the 385-bird deficit,” Archibald stated.

Only Fort Boise and the C.J. Strike wildlife management areas will see fewer birds stocked as the season winds down, he said in the release.

Both Montour and Payette River wildlife management areas will be stocked during the last full week of December, the first time in many years that these areas have received birds so late in the season.

An adjusted stocking schedule can be found on the Fish and Game website at idfg.idaho.gov^[1]. For answers about the schedule change, call Fort Boise Wildlife Management Area office at 208-722-5888.