New York reverses plan to shut down Reynolds Game Farm
By Krisy Gashler •
[email protected] • January 17, 2009
Hunters and sportsmen filed a restraining order Thursday to prevent the DEC from destroying the pheasants at the Game Farm, a judge granted the order Friday and shortly afterward Gov. David Paterson reversed his position and agreed not to close the state's only pheasant game farm, said Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation oversees the game farm. Calls to the DEC and to the game farm were not returned Friday.
State Sen. George Winner, R-53rd, applauded the decision in a statement released late Friday.
"I appreciate the willingness of the Paterson administration to recognize the value of this program to the Upstate New York culture and economy and to work with us to find an effective and creative way to keep the Reynolds Game Farm operating," Winner said. "I believe we will find an effective solution that will preserve the tradition and the economic benefit of New York's pheasant stocking program."
King said he believes pressure from his organization, as well as the Conservation Alliance of New York, the National Rifle Association of America and the National Shooting Sports Foundation were critical in Paterson's decision.
"The sportsmen in New York state are a pretty potent force," King said. "There's right around a million hunters in New York state and there are approximately 4.5 million gun owners in New York state. Pheasant hunting is near and dear to all of those who are hunters and shooters, and even though New York state does not have the best pheasant hunting in the world, it is near and dear. It's a tradition to many, many hunters."
Not everyone was pleased with the news.
Patrick Kwan, New York state Director of the Humane Society of the United States, said the practice of releasing pen-reared pheasants into the wild for hunting each year is "an abhorrent ritual."
"It's despicable that even with New York state's budget crunch, the sport hunting lobby is still jockeying for tax dollars to restore one of the least deserving and most inhumane programs imaginable," Kwan said by e-mail. "With so many legitimate programs in New York state that are facing cuts, it's absolutely inexcusable for taxpayer money to be going towards what is essentially recreational killing and target practice using live animals."
It costs roughly $750,000 per year to run the game farm, according to the DEC.
In announcing his initial decision to close the game farm in mid-December, Paterson said the $12 billion state budget deficit required "focus(ing) our limited resources in this difficult crisis."
"The closure of the Reynolds Game Farm presents us with one such opportunity," he said.
King said the money paid by hunters for licenses and the federal Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, argued in favor of keeping the game farm open.
The Pittman-Robertson act allows the state and federal governments to collect a 12 percent excise tax on outdoor goods like rifles, ammunition and outdoor clothing, King said.
The law requires that this money not be diverted to anything other than state fish and game departments, according to a summary of the law on the Michigan State University College of Law Web site.
"We understand hard times, and we are not unreasonable people," King said. "However, we just want to be treated fairly and if we're paying for it, we want to know where the money goes and how much of it is going into the pheasant farm."
If additional money is needed to operate the farm, hunters are willing to help raise funds, for example, through a pheasant stamp, King said.
The game farm is the last of its kind. It has operated on Game Farm Road in the Town of Dryden since 1927.
Yearly, the state disperses 60,000 day-old pheasant chicks, 15,000 7- to 10-week-old pheasants, and 25,000 adult pheasants so they can be raised and/or hunted.
