This Controversial Hunter Recruitment Program Buys Pheasants from Prisons. Now Bird Planting Could Expand to Federal and Private Lands

A controversial program that pays the Montana state prison to raise pheasants that are then released for hunters could expand to private and federal lands, if the state’s game commission green-lights the program for another five years.

Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider a proposal on Aug. 19 that could double the number of release sites of these pen-raised pheasants that are intended as easy targets for beginning hunters.

The program’s name, “Roosters for Recruitment,” gets at its intent, but critics of the arrangement say there’s no evidence that it’s an effective hunter-recruitment tool. They worry that these pen-reared birds could transmit diseases to the state’s wildlife and damage Montana’s reputation as an upland hunting destination that’s been built on good habitat, not put-and-take hatchery birds.

Besides the disease implications and optics, the program is a waste of money, say critics. The production cost for each released bird has ranged from $95 in 2022 to $48 in 2024. Confirmed per-bird costs weren’t available for the past two years.

Instead of expanding the program, it should be scrapped, they say, and the funds should be used for more durable hunter-recruitment and retention tools such as access programs.

The program has its origin in 2021 legislation that authorized Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to spend up to $1 million annually “for the purchase of pheasants to be released on state lands.” Funds for what was initially called the “Youth Pheasant Release Program” come from both FWP’s hunter-license account and from the federal Pittman-Robertson funds derived from a tax on the sale of firearms and ammunition. The PR funds are eligible due to the Pittman-Robertson Modernization Act of 2019 that allowed federal excise funds to be used for hunter education and recruitment purposes in addition to traditional wildlife management uses.

Pheasants for FWP’s program have been sourced from Montana Correctional Enterprises, a bureau of the Montana Department of Corrections that provides vocational training for inmates.

Pheasants are incubated and brooded at the Montana State Penitentiary in Deer Lodge, in facilities that previously housed the prison dairy, but last year additional flight pens were established at Pine Hills Correctional Facility in Miles City, which is closer to most Roosters for Recruitment release sites. Birds — a mix of roosters and hens — have been released at state Wildlife Management Areas, Fishing Access Sites, and on some school-trust lands ahead of Montana’s youth pheasant season.

The renewed focus on hunter recruitment is reflected in the program’s name change — Roosters for Recruitment, which was the headline of a Montana Outdoors magazine story that detailed the program’s purported benefits. Montana’s governor has even gotten in on the action, helping FWP staff release prison-reared pheasants in 2023.

“We believe that getting kids and their families out with a chance for success early on leads to them wanting to do it more,” says FWP spokesman Greg Lemon. “Putting pen-raised birds on state lands for the youth [hunting] weekend and working with dogs and working with mentors and having success is a good thing.”

The program’s budget has fluctuated from $605,000 in 2022, to $955,000 in 2023, to about $450,000 the past two years. Meanwhile, the number of released birds has varied from 5,730 in 2022 to 13,964 in 2024, and 9,853 last year. According to FWP, the limiting factor to releasing a greater number of pheasants is “suitable habitat on state land, not hatching and raising pheasants.”

That’s why FWP is asking the commission next month for authority to expand the release program to state and private land that “must contain suitable habitat and public access.”

According to an environmental assessment of the program expansion, FWP plans to scale the program to release up to 50,000 pheasants annually on suitable land in the state.

“No pheasants will be released on private land without the landowner’s commitment to and description of allowed public hunting access for pheasants,” according to the EA. Eligible properties could include those “posting the opportunity at least one week prior to the youth hunting weekend for public awareness.”

“We’re interested in opportunities to partner with organizations that are doing youth hunts,” says FWP’s Lemon. “Say you’re a community group that wants to have a youth hunt on private land so kids can put some feathers in the air and have something to shoot at. Currently, we can’t do that on private land, which is why we’re asking the commission to expand the scope of the program.”

Federal lands that might be considered for pheasant releases could include U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bureau of Land Management.

Public comments are currently being accepted through July 29 for the commission’s decision.

Little Recruitment Data

Ben Deeble cites a litany of problems with the pheasant-release program, but his criticism starts with what he says is very little indication that it’s the hunter-recruitment tool the department claims it to be.

“There is little evidence that youth, or for that matter older hunters, are being recruited or reactivated by this program,” says Deeble, the president of the Big Sky Upland Bird Association and a frequent participant in proceedings of FWP’s Upland Game Bird Enhancement Program Advisory Council. “In 2024, over 2,000 hunters responded to a survey about the program, and a minority responded that they had either participated in or approved of the program.”

FWP’s Lemon acknowledges there’s scant data on whether pheasant releases actually recruit beginning hunters or retain existing hunters.

“We haven’t seen direct impacts on license sales that we can determine,” he says. “It’s hard to parse out whether an upland bird license sale is associated with the release program or if they would have bought a license anyway.”

Lemon said FWP also doesn’t collect numbers of participating hunters who might encounter prison birds or who traveled to a release site specifically with the expectation of encountering a released pheasant. Instead, the department uses the annual survey of upland hunters to gauge support for and participation in release-site hunts.

While Deeble’s organization advocates for upland habitat and access programs, he’s not averse to the idea of pen-raised birds to boost hunting success.

“Raising birds in captivity and managing their habitat to provide optimal shooting opportunities can be a good place to start a youth or to host the final days of an aging hunter,” he says. “The birds are planted within minutes of the hunt so you generally know where they are, and they’re not lost to predators. But I maintain this is a role that the private sector can and does provide at much greater economic efficiency than the prison.”

Deeble’s greater concern is the potential for disease transmission from hatchery birds to wild populations.

“I’ve personally toured the hatchery at Deer Lodge, and in the eggery building and brooding barns, there are some elements of biosecurity,” says Deeble. “But the flight pens are a farce in terms of being able to keep maturing pheasants separate from wild birds, so the potential for avian flu or other pathogenic transmission is high.”

Deeble cites poultry industry reports of high parasite loads in pen-raised bird populations.

“There’s research that strongly suggests at least some upland bird populations are driven more than anything by parasite loads,” he says. “And I’ve gotten no responses to my questions about what the prison is doing to keep parasite loads low. So there’s a chance that they’re turning out pen pheasants that are loaded with parasites out on the landscape. If I was a landowner with suitable habitat and the department asked to release these Deer Lodge pheasants on my place, I’d tell them no, because I don’t think they can guarantee these are disease- and parasite-free birds.”

Wider Impacts

FWP has been careful to articulate that pen-raised pheasants aren’t intended to supplement wild populations. Survival of hatchery-reared birds is widely acknowledged to be low, adds Hunter VanDonsel, state coordinator for the Montana chapter of Pheasants Forever.

“The science is clear, planting pen-raised pheasants doesn’t work for population augmentation,” says VanDonsel. “We’re a habitat organization, so it’s unsurprising that we’d rather see resources devoted to habitat. That said, hunting opportunities for pen-raised birds can have positive outcomes in terms of hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation. If I have a criticism of the Roosters for Recruitment program, it’s how and where the releases are managed. I question whether we really need to plant pen-raised birds in areas of the state with strong wild populations.”

But Lemon maintains many program benefits are less tangible than birds in bags.

“Whether we’re talking with landowners or organizations, partnerships are increasingly important to FWP, and having a partnership with the prison has been a key part of the program,” he says. “The vocational benefit to prisoners is important. And we hope that an expanded program can help create partnerships with landowners and organizations that we haven’t worked with in the past.”

Relationships with landowners can mature into enrollment in habitat and access programs, which are the department’s preferred hunter recruitment tools, says Lemon.

Deeble would also like to see continued investments in both, suggesting that if the commission scraps the prison-bird program, funds could go into FWP’s Upland Game Bird Habitat Enhancement Program that invests in both habitat and hunter access. He notes that Montana Game and Fish (predecessor to FWP) once ran a department bird hatchery. It closed down in the 1980s as production costs skyrocketed and evidence mounted that simply planting pen-raised birds was a poor substitute for habitat that could support wild populations of pheasants and other upland species on a perennial basis.

“Since Montana abandoned its hatchery, our biologists and habitat managers have prided ourselves on our capacity to not only grow good upland bird habitat but also to have public access to it,” Deeble says. “The proof is that Montana has become a destination for upland hunters from around the nation who come here for our wild birds, and more to the point, access to our wild birds.”

In other words, Montana doesn’t seem to have an upland hunter recruitment problem that needs fixing. Deeble cites this year’s delayed upland season start for non-resident hunters, which was a response to hunter crowding in the state’s most popular upland habitats.

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Instead of releasing birds, Deeble suggests using funds to unlock access to upland habitats.

“If you wanted to see a significant boost in youth hunters for pheasants or other upland birds, you could use funds to prioritize Block Management properties near our urban areas,” he says. “You could potentially limit these properties to use by youths [only] so they didn’t have the competition from experienced retirees like me. That could maybe move the needle on hunter recruitment, but at this point, my take is that buying hatchery birds instead of good habitat is like paying every night for an expensive hotel room instead of buying a home.”