Pheasant shooting is the activity of shooting the

common pheasant The common pheasant (''Phasianus colchicus'') is a bird in the pheasant family (Phasianidae). The genus name comes from Latin ''phasianus'', "pheasant". The species name ''colchicus'' is Latin for "of Colchis" (modern day Georgia), a country on ...

. It takes place in the United Kingdom, and is practised in other parts of the world. Shooting of game birds is carried out using a shotgun, often 12 and 20 bore or a .410, sometimes on land managed by a

gamekeeper A gamekeeper (often abbreviated to keeper), or in case of those dealing with deer (deer-)stalker, is a person who manages an area of countryside (e.g. areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland) to make sure there is enough game for sho ...

United Kingdom

The common pheasant was first introduced to Great Britain many centuries ago, but was rediscovered as a game bird in the 1830s. It is reared extensively in captivity, and around 47 million pheasants are released each year on shooting estates, mainly in England, although most released birds survive less than a year in the wild. The numbers of captive-reared pheasants released have risen sharply since the 1980s.

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna ...

has concluded that the released birds threaten native wildlife by increasing predator numbers and creating competition for food. In October 2020 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced that a licensing regime would be introduced in 2021 for releases of pheasants within 500m of protected sites. Pheasants are shot on the traditional formal "driven shoot" principles, whereby guest or paying guns have birds driven over them by beaters, and on smaller "rough shoots" by other methods. The open season in the UK is from 1 October to 1 February, under the Game Act 1831. Generally they are shot by guns employing

gun dog Gun dogs, or bird dogs, are types of hunting dogs developed to assist hunters in finding and retrieving game, usually quail, dove, or duck. Gun dogs are divided into three primary types: retrievers, flushing dogs, and pointing breeds. Types ...

s to help find, flush, and retrieve shot birds.

Retriever A retriever is a Dog type, type of gun dog that retrieves Game (hunting), game for a hunter. Generally gun dogs are divided into three major classifications: retrievers, flushing spaniels, and pointing breeds. Retrievers were bred primarily to ...

s, spaniels, and

pointing breed Pointing dogs, sometimes called bird dogs, are a type of gundog typically used in finding game. Gundogs are traditionally divided into three classes: retrievers, flushing dogs, and pointing breeds. The name ''pointer'' comes from the dog's i ...

s are used to flush pheasants. The

doggerel Doggerel, or doggrel, is poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme, often deliberately for burlesque or comic effect. Alternatively, it can mean verse which has a monotonous rhythm, easy rhyme, and cheap or trivial meaning. The word is deri ...

"Up gets a guinea, bang goes a penny-halfpenny, and down comes a half a crown" reflects the expensive pastime of 19th century driven shoots in Britain, when pheasants were often shot for pleasure rather than as food. It was a popular royal pastime in Britain to shoot common pheasants. King George V shot over a thousand pheasants out of a total bag of 3,937 over a six-day period in December 1913 during a competition with a friend, however did not do enough to beat him.

United States

Common pheasants were introduced in North America in 1773 and have become well established throughout much of the

Rocky Mountain The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

states (

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

Montana Montana () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West List of regions of the United States#Census Bureau-designated regions and divisions, division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the sou ...

, etc.), the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. ...

, the

Plains In geography, a plain is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. In ...

states, as well as Canada and Mexico. In the southwest, they can even be seen south of the Rockies in

Bosque del Apache The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge ( ) is located in southern New Mexico. It was founded in 1939 and is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is a favorite spot to watch the migration of the sandhill cranes in th ...

National Wildlife Refuge south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is now most common on the Great Plains. In some states, e.g.

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, captive-reared and released birds make up much of the population. The first planted pheasants in the United States were put in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Pheasant hunting is popular in much of the U.S., especially in the Great Plains states, where a mix of farmland and native grasslands provides ideal habitat. South Dakota alone has an annual harvest of over a million birds by over 200,000 hunters. Much of the American

hunting Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/ tusks, horn/ a ...

is done by groups of hunters, who walk through fields and shoot the birds as they are flushed by dogs such as Labrador Retrievers and Springer Spaniels. There are also many hunters who use Pointers such as

English Setter The English Setter is a medium-size breed of dog. It is part of the setter group, which includes the red Irish Setters, Irish Red and White Setters, and black-and-tan Gordon Setters. The mainly white body coat is of medium length with long sil ...

s or German Shorthairs to find and hold pheasants for

hunters Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler ...

to flush and shoot.

References

External links

{{English Game Bird hunting Hunting and shooting in the United Kingdom Pheasants Hunting in the United States