Along with Christmas trees, you can add ring-necked pheasants to the list of hard to find items this Christmas season.
A simple miscount by the supplier of birds destined for stocking on Fish and Game’s four regional Wildlife Management Area (WMAs) means fewer birds have and will be stocked in the final weeks of the pheasant hunting season.
“Our supplier recently discovered that they were short by about 800 birds,” Fish and Game wildlife biologist Tyler Archibald noted. “And only one of the 58 other bird farms contacted had any surplus birds available.”
Those 400 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 said. “Only Ft. Boise and C.J. Strike WMAs will see fewer birds stocked as the season winds down.”
Both Montour and Payette River WMAs will be stocked during the last full week of December, the first time in many years that these WMAs have received birds so late in the season.
Here's the adjusted stocking schedule. For questions regarding the stocking schedule, contact the Fort Boise WMA office at 208-722-5888.