This is a RED HOT source of contention with me: land access.
I swore in my original post that got deleted, so I'll explain myself in more appropriate terms:
These people that are landowners that participate in pheasant release should not have ownership to pick and choose who goes on their land. Frankly, I have zero idea why STATE OWNED pheasants are even on private owner's lands. ALL pheasants should be released on state land. Lets just face the fact that Pheasants are not a native species to New York, and have to be artificially stocked. NOW having said that, on the DEC's pheasant propogation overview, there are two specific DEC progams;
1.) is the "day old cooperative pheasant chick program" or DOCP, which says "Each cooperator receives a specified number of day-old chicks to raise and release at no additional expense to DEC. All birds must be released on lands open for public hunting. "
... so that's obviously not the problem in Montgomery County.
The problem is not that or this....
2.) Adult Pheasant Release Program (APRP) "Most are used for stocking more than 100 DEC-managed public hunting lands before and during the regular pheasant hunting season and two preseason youth pheasant hunt weekends"
The problem is this .....
"All pheasants distributed through DEC programs are released on land open to the public for pheasant hunting."
SO I WOULD REPORT THEM! DEC seems very specific about this. These are state owned pheasants. I would write a complaint. These hayseed farmers can't participate in the program and then renig. I found nothing about this specifically, but again, it offers up the opportunity to have the farmer close his lands for just him and his buddies, and thus needs to be reported, and red-flagged through the DEC as not an eligible participant for next year's release.
