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Hunting Pheasants - Is It Ethical?

Yesterday I went pheasant hunting, like I have done dozens and dozens of times since 2006, when I got my hunting license. But is it real hunting, if the birds have been released just hours before I get there? And is it fair and ethical?

Well, the game maybe wild or bred for the purpose, it is an animal of pray - it has enemies which are further up on the food chain. No animal of pray dies of old age. If it is bred to be hunted and eaten by man, it has had a steady supply of food and shelter, even if some of its "fellow creatures" occasionally will fight and even kill each other - this is actually quite common with pheasants. A wild bird is more likely to die young; lack of nutrition, cold, predators. It is totally dependent on its mother and sometimes father, too. It may get killed by traffic, too.

So here I am walking on the hunting grounds looking for the birds that have been planted there for me. Is it fair? You come and try for yourself! Even with a dog, the birds may never be found. And some of them will be found by predators, such as goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) and they are very common near any pheasant farm, nowadays. When my dog finds a pheasant, there´s still a chance to get away, either the birds take off flying so low I cannot take the shot for safety reasons, or I miss. 

Yesterday was a wet day. The birds that had gotten wet did not really fly that well, and were caught by the dogs. Good food - guaranteed no shots in the meat! Then my dog stumbled across a pair, and they flew away - lost those, too. Then we had a good, steady point and I had a perfect spot to take the shot - and I blew it. I had my side-by-side shotgun and with that I need to shoot the target straight on - and I must have shot below, and I missed both of my two shots. Really bad shooting!!

The next opportunity opened, when we flushed a bird which then flew first to a fellow hunter, she missed, but I could also take that shot - a real swing to the left - and it was perfect, and we got the bird!

We had a total of 12 birds for us, and we got 8 of them - which is ok. The hunting grounds is close to 100 hectares, so I´m thinking something like 10 km of walking on my part. For the next time I have to remember to put the Ultracom tracking device for my GSP, I want to know how much he travels during the day!

We also went to wetlands to see if there were some wild mallards and teals left. And boy, were there!! There was a big flock of dozens of teals, that were flying fast and gaining height as they flew by us, in hindsight we should have just let them pass. Instead we ofcourse did try. And as soon as we had our barrels empty, a flock of mallards flew right above us - within a very good shooting distance - but they were gone by the time we had realoaded..

So yes, there will be game on the table again, I paid good money for it to a farmer, and 24 % of the price will be income for the state of Finland to be used on infrastructure, education, health services and other good and also not so good (nonsense projects for example) purposes, I worked for it, I had my dog to do what he was bred for, and I was being social. How ethically broken am I?

We had a lovely pheasant pie and some New York cheese cake (by Lidl, I should add!!) with coffee at the end of the day at my friend´s house, so it was a really good day.

Next week I´ll be off to some Big Game!!

PS. The picture was not taken yesterday, there´s no snow yet :)