The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said it is releasing nearly 7,300 pheasants in Southern Michigan for the hunting season.
According to the DNR, the thousands of pheasants will be released at state game areas across the southern Lower Peninsula. This is the seventh year of the pheasant release program, which is a collaboration between the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Michigan Association of Gamebird Breeders and Hunting Preserves, which supplies the birds.
A $25 pheasant license funds the program, according to the DNR.
Pheasant hunting was wildly popular in Michigan in the mid-1900s but the wild pheasant population declined dramatically due to a loss of grassland habitat.
“For many hunters, the program gives them a chance to relive the good old days of pheasant hunting, which at one point was more popular than deer hunting,” said Adam Bump, the DNR’s upland birds specialist. “It also gives younger people the chance to go hunting on public lands and exposes the next generation to pheasant hunting.”
Pheasant releases will take place Oct. 20 through Nov. 14 and again from Dec. 1 through Jan. 1 across the southern Lower Peninsula.
Fall hunting season for ring-necked pheasant is Oct. 20 through Nov. 14, and in parts of the Upper Peninsula (all of Menominee County and parts of Delta, Dickinson, Iron and Marquette counties), hunting runs Oct. 10 through Oct. 30.
Pheasant release locations are:
- Cornish (Van Buren County)
- Crane Pond (Cass County)
- Crow Island (Bay and Saginaw counties)
- Dansville (Ingham County)
- Erie (Monroe County)
- Gagetown (Huron and Tuscola counties)
- Lapeer (Lapeer County)
- Leidy Lake (St. Joseph County)
- Pointe Mouillee (Monroe and Wayne counties)
- Rose Lake (Clinton and Shiawassee counties)
- St. Johns Marsh (St. Clair County)
- Stanton (Montcalm County)
- Townline 16 (Bay County)
