Where Are the Pheasants ?

[Downwindtracker2]

I'll start out by telling of my pheasant knowledge, growing up in north Burnaby in the mid-50s there were pheasant in our neighbourhood, it was still had bush , in fact my friends captured a cock with a gunny sack . My only other bit of pheasant knowledge was one of my Ladner high school chums said his lab would get disgusted with him when he wouldn't shoot hens on their farm. This was mid/late '60s . What areas in the province have pheasants now. I gather they are not common now.

[604ksmith]

The Okanagan still has them, mostly in lowland areas.

I've seen a few in the Osoyoos area, and several in the Vernon/Lavington/Armstrong area.

[ACB]

There's birds around Creston, but don't know how many. The biggest thing with Pheasants is habitat, there used to be wild birds in around Chilliwack. There were blackberries growing over every fence line providing lots of cover and not very many Coyote's, there were probably as many Skunks as Coyotes back in the day. So it's really simple, no habitat, no wild Pheasants. Habitat; cover, nesting cover, food supply, water.

[britman101]

Its too late in BC to save upland gamebirds like pheasants and even quail in my humble opinion. Not enough habitat and also groups like Pheasants Forever to carry the torch to insure that their is habitat for pheasants to survive on as well as increase the population of wild birds. If things had been different thirty or twenty years ago, who knows what might have happened. But the last few pockets of birds will eventually dwindle down to nothing. A sad reflection of our times.

[mike31154]

2012 in my yard. 10 or so blocks from downtown. Haven't seen one since. Quail frequent my yard regularly to this day. .... and mule deer. Welcome to the wild kingdom of Vernon.



He hopped on the neighbour's roof to get a better view


Does & their offspring hang out in my yard fairly frequently. Once in a while a nice buck drops by.

[Arctic Lake]

You could hunt them in Pitt Meadows when I was 20 , hmmm geeezzz that was 48 years ago .
Tempus Fugit
Arctic Lake

[N¡ck]

To be fair, pheasants and quails are not native to BC

[britman101]

I would agree with you on the ring neck pheasant. That was am import from Asia that was released in North America. As for quail, there are six species which are native to North America. Given time I think California quail would have come in from Washington State into BC. As for gamebird populations, compare how Washington state looks after their gamebirds and compare it to BC. Big difference in the views of gamebird management.

[ACB]

I would agree with you on the ring neck pheasant. That was am import from Asia that was released in North America. As for quail, there are six species which are native to North America. Given time I think California quail would have come in from Washington State into BC. As for gamebird populations, compare how Washington state looks after their gamebirds and compare it to BC. Big difference in the views of gamebird management.

The same could be said about Alberta, there's reason they have so many release sites. There was a time when the farmers didn't cut hay in the ditch's and there was wind rows of willows and hothorn and there was cover grass along a fence line. I think you're right about the quail, you just have to look at the Turkey's that have come up from Idaho and Washington.

[J_T]

Predation. Number one predator on birds.... raccoons. Invading the nests. Region 4 has a depleted turkey supply in the trench, one theory is, it is due to raccoons now moving into the EK.