Preserve your hunt options

Hunters who don’t have a lock on a prime farm teeming with pheasants still have numerous options for hunting upland birds.

•State and federal lands provide good bird hunting opportunity, including Corps of Engineers habitat lands along the Snake River.

•Five private hunting preserves are within an easy drive of Spokane providing pen-raised pheasants and partridge for release in realistic hunting habitat.

•Washington releases thousands of pen-raised pheasants at sites scattered across Eastern Washington. Directions to the sites are available on the agency’s Web site.

Washington’s pheasant release program in Eastern Washington will be roughly the same as it was last year, but the number of birds may be reduce in upcoming years.

The Washington Legislature has allowed the Fish and Wildlife Department to divert more of the program funding to habitat and less to buying pen-raised birds, said Mick Cope, department game bird manager.