LYLE - The efforts of two local environmental groups took flight Thursday night – literally, as approximately 100 new-born pheasants flew, jumped and flopped out of their wooden crates and into the wild just northeast of Lyle.

Friday, August 06, 1999

LYLE - The efforts of two local environmental groups took flight Thursday night – literally, as approximately 100 new-born pheasants flew, jumped and flopped out of their wooden crates and into the wild just northeast of Lyle.

The two groups, the Cedar Valley Conservation Club, which had raised the 7-week-old birds since a day after hatching out of their eggs, and Pheasants and Habitat of Southeastern Minnesota, which had purchased the birds as well as the land were released, said they went through with project to ensure pheasant populations, where habitat is on the decline.

"With the way the farming economy the way it is, there’s less CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) land than before," said CVCC member Don Hanson. "So it was out of necessity that this land was bought."

The two groups also released about 130 of same variety of pheasant, the Chinese ring-neck, two weeks ago in the Spring Valley and Grand Meadow area. The two groups, which commonly work together on similar projects such as Thursday’s release, plan release more pheasants throughout Mower County over the next 2-3 weeks.

Pheasants and Habitat bought the pheasants from a game farm in Princeton and over 150 acres of farmland, about a third of which will remain tillable according to Bruce Beeman of Pheasants and Habitat.

Hanson said the key to the success of the pheasant transfers was owning the land where the birds were being released. Hanson estimated the two groups gave away 20,000 birds last year’ in previous attempts to repopulate pheasant populations, but because the majority of land owner’s of where the birds were released didn’t allow other hunters on their property or simply killed the birds themselves, the previous attempts had minimal effects on the populations.

"This gives us more control and allows us to monitor their situations," Hanson said.

"We’re all avid hunters here," Beeman said of the relocation group that included three members from the CVCC: Willie Josephson, Don and Karl Hanson, and two other members from Pheasants and Habitat: Brad Graffe and Mike Dryer. "But if you take, take and take, and not give anything back, there’s not going to anything left to enjoy if you don’t give anything back."

The land and the birds were purchased with money generated at the Pheasants and Habitat’s annual fundraiser at Grumpy’s in Grand Meadow in late March. Pheasants and Habitat, which is in its 18th year of operation, will also be giving away a four-wheeler through a drawing on Oct. 16, the pheasant season opens.

For more information about Pheasants and Habitat, call 754 -5558, or for information about volunteering at the CVCC, call 433-4937.