DNR releases 7,300 pheasants for southern Michigan hunting season

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is releasing nearly 7,300 pheasants at state game areas across the southern Lower Peninsula to support the upcoming hunting season. This marks the seventh year of the program, a collaboration with the Michigan Association of Gamebird Breeders and Hunting Preserves, which supplies the birds.

Funded by a $25 pheasant license, the initiative aims to restore a hunting tradition that declined due to habitat loss. Adam Bump, the DNR’s upland birds specialist, noted that the program allows younger hunters to access public lands and experience a sport that was once more popular than deer hunting.

Pheasant releases will occur from October 20 through November 14 and again from December 1 through January 1. The fall hunting season for ring-necked pheasants in the southern Lower Peninsula runs concurrently with the first release window.

Read the full story at wxyz.com.