The poor will feast on pheasant

New York State will close a $750,000 pheasant farm, the last of its kind in the state, and donate its nearly 8,000 remaining birds to food pantries. The New York Times reports that this will bring to an end an era of state-stocked pheasant-hunting lands.

I'm feeling ambivalent about the decision, since I have long supported hunting as a more humane source of meat than our mainstream livestock production system. But this wasn't exactly a wilderness harvest, I guess. I have no information about the conditions that the birds experienced before their release to the wild, or how long their life expectancy in the wild was. All I know is that there were up to 14 workers at various times of the season dedicated to ensuring the health and welfare of the pheasants. That's way better than the ratio that exists on a mainstream chicken operation.

So most of the pheasants, which constitute the breeding stock of the farm and cannot be release into the wild because their wings have been clipped, will be slaughtered and sent to the needy in and around Christmastime. Not a bad holiday gift from a state that's closing the farm to save some money.

So-called "canned hunts," where animals are stocked on game preserves for hunters to shoot, are also an ethical quandary. There's no doubt that the quality of life for the animals in such captivity is far better than it is for livestock, but how many of those animals are shot as trophies, rather than for the meat? It's very different from shooting non-endangered whitetail deer in the wild or invasive nutria in the bayou.

Whatever their life experiences were, the New York pheasants are bringing some sustenance to the hungry at a time of increasing need. As a great chef I've known once said, "how many of us will bring as much joy in death as these beasts will?"