I was about 10 when my father taught me how to hunt pheasant, giving the bird a lead when aiming. We hunted in Claresholm-area fields about 1969 and, legend has it, dad's friend missed a rising pheasant but, to my young surprise, I brought it down. Good times and beautiful birds! 🤗

Great video, music and cinematography.

Just a GREAT video !

A ringneck rooster by age 2 is a master of deception.
Year 3 and it's elusive...
Checks and necks! 👍

Great video. My hope is one day Alberta pheasant hunters will not have to rely on pen raised birds from a hatchery but will be able to pursue pheasants born and hatched in the wild.

Closed captions mentions feeasants. Might want to correct that. Great job overall.

Here in Northern California the once great pheasant population has been wiped out by farming practices that dont leave one square inch for wildlife, fields are lazer planed and irrigation canals are sprayed with roundup, not just pheasant but all kinds of birdlife is gone, yellow billed magpies, western meadowlarks etc etc
Gone

As a beand new hunter, I'm interested in hunting pheasant, but don't have a dog and I've heard it's very difficult to flush pheasants without one. Maybe I'll try for grouse

Hi and thank you for this informative video! It really made me curious and I have a lot of questions.

I was going to ask if the pheasants were imported so thanks for mentioning they are now being bred in Alberta. I wish the video spoke more on the breeding operations and mentioned that only males are released. Does the province own the pheasant farms or are they all private operations that the province purchases from? Does the province otherwise regulate the breeding operations and farming conditions? Do the birds get veterinary care of any kind? Are the birds tested for diseases before release? Does ACA or the province conduct impact studies for pheasant releases on wild bird populations? Will impact studies happen before plans to release birds in northern Alberta? Is the reason for "northern releases" just to have the birds naturally distribute themselves south throughout the province towards warmer temperatures, or other reasons?

Why are the birds referred to as "naturalised?" They are intentionally released each year aka not naturally found. They don't breed in the wild and any birds that survive predation and roads/vehicles will freeze to death in the winter. The video implies this is an intentional goal in the beginning but never outright says it, but then expresses opinions of "naturalization." I think at best ACA could claim the pheasants have no negative impact on wild birds... but that is also never stated outright, only that "the pheasant releases contribute to conservation efforts." Which is why I'm so curious if anyone performs impact studies.

I'd really like to ask why there were two different times in the video where the line "Alberta had many untouched places" or "Alberta was untouched before [we] came here" are said. First, it's not as if the video tries to tie those lines into proactive conservation. They're really just standalone lines. And if anything, reminiscing about pristine landscape seems counterproductive to the goal of releasing thousands of non-native birds on a regular basis. And second, saying Alberta was "untouched" is just plain wrong. Alberta was populated with dozens of Indigenous nations, from the mountains to the lakes to the plains, for thousands of years. Some nations were seasonally transient, following herds and flocks of migrating animals, which would have required much knowledge of animal, plant and habitat conservation. To me that info makes much better support for the ACA's conservation initiatives than the land being "untouched." As well, some nations had permanent settlements with large populations until they were decimated (literally reduced to a tenth) by European diseases, and the remainder pushed onto dedicated reservations. Which I suppose could give a sense of "untouched" spaces in a morbid sense. Maybe someone can explain those lines to me in a way that isn't disingenuous about Alberta's history?

Please release hens!!! We are reliant on farm raised birds - we need females to get a wild population going. Too many people are making money releasing only males I suppose………..

The aca has done a horrible job in the last 3 years on the release sites

And then if they do reproduce in the wild they become a problem for the environment and then everyone remembers that pheasants are an invasive species and they should not exist in North America.